How to fully magnetize a Taurox Prime

Today I'm showing you how to fully magnetize a Taurox Prime. Some may ask if it is really worth doing it, I think it is.

When playing a Scions army the Taurox is your main workhorse, and anti tank unit. You can even stay back with it and outshoot Tau, because the Taurox Prime fitted with missile launcher and autocannons has a range of 48" (I'm not saying that's a very clever tactic, but you can do it). On the other hand the Gatling cannon + Hotshot volley gun is a great infantry killer. You can also mix anti tank and anti vehicle weapons to be able to take on everything. I enjoy giving my anti infantry Taurox a Hunter Killer missile, so it can shoot stuff in the first round, before something gets in range of the 24" weapons.

I'm using two different kind of magnets:
"small" Neodym magnets 1x1mm
"medium" Neodym magnets 2x2mm
"big" Neodym magnets 3x3mm


Part one. Side mounted weapons

 To start with, just use the standard GW knife und make a little whole in the centre of the weapon mount, then drill a small hole with the standard 1mm Games Workshop drill, at some point you notice that the weapon mount is hollow, that's the point where you should stop and use a 2mm drill. When you are done with drilling, put a little bit of super glue on a 2x2mm magnet and put it in the hole, it should be a smooth surface or poke the magnet in a tiny bit more, but it should never be look out of the hole. Do the same procedure on the other side.

Then we need to drill the holes for the 2x2mm magnets in the weapons. Just use the same procedure, make a tiny hole with your cutting knife in the centre of where the weapon mount comes in, then first use a 1mm drill, and afterwards a 2mm drill, you'll get a feeling of how long you have to drill after a few times doing this procedure :) Put your magnet into the weapon, don't forget the super glue, and check that you put it the right way in, because it's nearly impossible to get a magnet back out.

When you are done, it should look like this.

Part two. Side mounted Antenna

Pick a side, on which you'd like to have a flag or antenna. I like adding stuff like this because it really adds a real feeling to the model. And because it's magnetized, it can't break off.

Make a small hole with your cutting knife when you've found a spot where to put the antenna. And put a 2mm magnet into whole, but poke the magnet in 1-2mm, so that the antenna magnet can get into the hole as well and sit more firm on your model. I used the antenna's of the Space Marine Scout Bikers for my model, they got a good size and fit to the model.

When you are done with the side, it should look like this:

Then be careful, the antenna is pretty tiny, and you need to take great care not drill through the whole antenna mount when you are making the hole for the magnet! That's why the magnet is not completely in the antenna mount, about 0,5-1mm shows, that's alright, because we counter balanced this by putting the magnet deeper into the side of the Taurox.

The completed antenna with 2x2mm magnet looks like this:

On the complete model:

Part three, Missile Launcher:

Alright, we've gained enough experience (in case you didn't have any before) of how to drill holes for the magnets and to put them in. Now we need to apply these technics again on a larger scale.

a) Taurox roof. Putting big 3x3mm magnets into the Taurox roof. This is pretty straight forward, the roof already got two areas where your magnets should be placed, start with a 2mm drill in the centre of those areas, then move on to the 3mm drill, yes you drill through the roof, that's alright. When you put your 3x3mm magnets in, let them show a bit, like 1mm over the the plastic boarders around it. Like this: (centre piece in the picture)

(the white comes from the super glue, but it doesn't matter as it hasn't been painted yet, even if you did paint it yet, you can easily get rid of it, by applying a wash of any type on the "white" parts and it should go away.)

b) weapon mount. Next part is the mount (on the right in the picture) which connects the Taurox roof (the centre part in the picture) with the roof cover. The mount has two bigger parts on the bottom, that's where your magents get in, make a small hole with your cutting knife, repeat the drill procedure with drills up to 3mm, but keep in the mind, the holes in the mount have to be deeper, because the magnets in the Taurox roof show 0,5-1mm. When you are done with the holes, glue in the magnets. It should look like on the picture above.

Second part of the mount is to drill the hole for the roof cover. This is pretty straight forward, on the big, fat part of the mount, drill a small hole in the centre, and repeat the procedure up to 3mm drill. Put in your magnet, this time about 1-1,5mm deeper, this is important, because the roof cover magnet needs to fit into this.

Here's how it should look like:

c) Roof cover. This is a bit tricky tbh. The most important part is to take great care that you DO NOT drill through the roof cover !

IMPORTANT: Magnet orientation: The magnet in the roof cover, needs to be drawn to the magnets you put in the Taurox roof! This has two reasons, first it automatically locks your loose roof in place when you don't use the missile launcher, but it still easily removable by hand if you want to change the weapon load out ( it stays in place even when you put the Taurox upside down and shake it). Second, otherwise the Taurox roof magnets reject your roof cover and you can't put it on.

Start with making a small hole into the centre of the roof cover, the small drills are not really required, just be careful because the 3mm drills can take a lot of plastic away, when you think that you've reached the maximum size of hole before drilling through the hole, stop. Now glue in the magnet in about 45° angle to the weapon mount, you could even put the roof cover magnet into the mount, put glue on the magnet and press the mount onto the roof cover. (just don't glue the whole thing onto the roof! This part can be a bit tricky, I normally use just a bit of super glue to get it into the right position, then add greenstuff, or a lot more super glue to fill the gaps around the magnet in the roof cover.

It should look like this:
 

d) Missile launcher pod magnetization.
Ok, this is far easier than the part before, you can put the small 1x1mm magnets actually anywhere on the inside, but I used the spots on the pictures above. Just glue them in place. It is important that you use the 1x1mm magnets, because if they are bigger, your roof cover does not fit on the Taurox roof anymore without making a small gap when not using the missile launcher mount.

Now you need to put 2x2mm magnets into the missile pods. But you need to use two random parts of the Taurox flash and glue them into the missile mounts (otherwise the magnets are too small), then glue the magnets onto them like this: (important, check the magnet orientation before glueing!)

When you've completed parts a-d your finished assembly should look like mine:

Now try putting everything together :

Without missile mount, but invisible magnets ! :D

Now there's something great about the magnet you installed in roof cover of the Taurox, because it is a 3x3mm magnet and hence is quite strong, you can now put magnet's into e.g. radar dish, smoke launcher, search light, barrel (to act as fire barrels) and so on. To represent special equipment on your Taurox Prime. I haven't had time ordering a set of barrels from Maxmini yet, but that's planned, and I think a fire barrel on the roof is gonna look great.

Also, the side mounted antenna magnet can be used to put a Scions flag on your Taurox Prime to represent an HQ Taurox, it could look like this:

Hope you liked this tutorial, if you got any questions, or ideas of how I can improve it, leave a comment!