Time for a (relatively) short update on the Shadowsword. As before the previous posts can be found here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4. Today's update is about the lascannon turrets that go on the top of the side armour sponsons.

 

First of all, just a few pics of the individual pieces laid out.

And then the rest of the pieces, including the lascannon's themselves.

I did wonder if I needed to magnetise the turrets onto the sponsons, as the turrets do sit nicely in place, as they were designed to be held by gravity. However then I thought, if the tank is being moved/carried/placed on terrain, the gravity hold probably won't be enough. So I started off by putting a magnet into the guide hole on the top of the sponson. I've bought some new magnets recently so this one is 2mm wide by 0.5mm thick approximately (very fiddly).

Now if I'd just glued another magnet onto the guide peg, the turrets would sit out of the mounting and look stupid. So I marked the peg about 2mm along and then began to careful file the plastic away. Once I'd reached my mark, I placed another magnet on the one already glued and dry fitted the peg. Some more filing was needed, and I re tested the fit until I was happy. The magnet was then glued onto the end of the peg and left to dry. Once the super glue had dried, the peg was inserted through the turret and glued in place with plastic glue. This process was then repeated for the other turret.

Here you can see one of the turrets mounted on the sponson. And also both of the turrets mounted. I made sure that the magnet polarities were different for each turret mount so if I decide to go with a camo scheme, the turrets will always end up on the right side.

And finally, here is a picture showing just how strong these little magnets are. Even with a bit of shaking the thing would not let go. Thanks for reading.

Here you can see all but one of the turret pieces laid out. The only piece that is not included in the photo's is the rear of the turret.

Now it was time for me to get some magnets set in the turret. Fortunately the edges of the turret are thick enough for me to drill a few holes in, which I made sure lined up properly with the armour/standing piece. Once these hole's were drilled, I glued in some magnets, again taking care to double check the polarities.

With the turret magnetised, I moved onto the armour/standing plate (that's what I call it anyway). This is the piece that can either go at the front of the tank or at the rear depending on which way it's flipped round.

Again I drilled some holes, being very careful this time, as the plastic is quite thin, and then glued in some magnets. This was especially tricky as one magnet glued wrong would mess up everything.

I haven't got any pictures of the pieces in place as I forgot to take them, hopefully I'll add them to part 5. Thanks for reading.

Welcome to Part 3, please take a look at Part 1 and Part 2 to see what I've been up to previously.

Taking a break from the fiddly sponsons, I moved on to the engine section/stepped troop section that goes at the back of the super heavy. Given that this area needed to be used in differently in the variants, I grabbed the magnets and blu tac and started to fit things together in a trial run.

 

At first, I wondered what this piece was for (not really looking at the instructions :-S). Then I looked at the instructions, and saw that it'll fit underneath the engine cover to completely seal the rear section. I glued a magnet to each end, trying different alignments to see which would hold better. This was also due to lack of space to glue the opposing magnet on the rear section which can be seen in the pics below.

So here is the rear section. As mentioned above, this will be part of the troop carrier platform, or when covered, the engine bay. First of all I drilled a hole for a magnet to hold the top engine cover in place. I almost drilled this completely through the plastic, my mistake. Fortunately it didn't go through and I had a hole deep enough to hold 2 magnets for extra strength.

Next up were the magnets to hold the other covering piece. These magnets were placed by literally putting some super glue in roughly the right place, holding the cover in its place, and then dropping a magnet into the glue and letting the magnetic fields do the lining up.

Having left the super glue to dry (the current one I'm using seems to take a bit longer than GW's own), I tested out my magnetised covers. And they fit and line up great, with enough pull on the magnets that they won't fall off with normal tabletop use.

Thanks for reading and keep an eye out for part 4.

Over the weekend I managed to get a few things done on the magnetised Shadowsword. Having completed the magnetisation of the armour panels in Part 1, it was time to crack on with the side sponsons.

The sponsons proved to be the hardest part of the process so far, as I will now explain. If you've ever had the pleasure of building a Baneblade/Shadowsword kit, then you'll know how fiddly the sponsons are to build.

The pic above shows the sponson weapon parts: two weapons, weapon shield and central mount. The central mount slots into the top and bottom of the sponson housing and can move freely. To magnetise this piece, the two guide pegs on either end were removed (this has already been done in the picture above). Next up a hole was needed on each end for the magnets to be placed in. Using a 2mm drill bit, I made a hole the right depth to fit one magnet.

Before gluing this magnet in place I thought I'd check to see if my idea would work. I put two magnets into the hole I'd made (one fully inserted and the other fully out), and then dry fitted this piece onto the base plate for the sponson. I'm glad I didn't glue the magnet in place as the piece would not sit flush on the base plate. With a few clever uses of magnets and blu tac, I assembled the whole of the sponson housing and found that there would be quite a big gap with both magnets on each end. I grabbed the hand drill again and continued to make the hole deeper, being very aware not to drill in too much as I would break the join on the plastic.

Eventually I managed to get the hole's to a good depth on both ends, and tried my long winded test method from above once again. This time the piece's all went together perfectly, and I could glue the magnets in place. The pictures above show the magnets on each end of the central mount. I'm not going to glue the gun shield onto the mount so I can use either the heavy bolters or heavy flamers for games. I hope that the bit of plastic between the weapons doesn't break off (it seems a bit flimsy).

Continuing on the fiddly magnet theme, I now had to glue one into the mounting hole on the top and bottom plates. I did this by putting a magnet on the end of the central mount, and dabbing some super glue onto the exposed side. I put the mount into the hole on the bottom plate and then put a bigger magnet on the outside to hold the central mount in place while the super glue dried. Once dry, I carefully pulled the pieces apart, leaving the magnet glued firmly in place on the bottom plate.

The other larger magnet in the picture above is actually two magnets on top of each other. These were added to give the bottom plate some more magnetism in order to keep it attached to the larger top piece.

And here is the larger top piece. I added a magnet to the mounting hole in the same way as on the bottom piece. You will also be able to see the cylinder magnet on the armour plates. This magnet is pretty much in line with the double stacked magnet on the bottom plate. I could have got them to line up properly, but didn't want to start hacking away at the guiding slots for the armour. Either way there is enough pull from the magnets to keep the top and bottom pieces together, and the central weapon mount helps to keep this pull evenly spread.

Here is the full sponson, with heavy flamers attached. As you can see the whole thing fits together quite nicely and with those extra magnets is very strong. I spend about 30 seconds shaking the thing about all over the place trying to get the magnets to let go as a test, and there was hardly any movement, which is exactly what I wanted.

And just to show that I'm not making it all up, here is the sponson on the side section. The second picture was me seeing what the sponson looked like in a different slot. I have been considering buying another set of sponsons so that I can have two on each side but maybe for another Baneblade :). Thanks for reading all of this, I'm off to magnetise the other sponson.