By Jaden Iwaasa
Malekith is a gigantic model, and some of us do not have the space to store or transport him fully assembled. Fortunately, we have a solution – Magnets!
Materials:
For this build, you’re going to need a couple sizes of magnets. The ones I used were:
– 1/8 inch (3 mm) diamater by 1/16 inch (1.5 mm) thick N52 Neodymium (Torso)
– 1/8 inch (3 mm) diamater by 1/32 inch (0.75 mm) thick N52 Neodymium (Wings)
– 1/4 inch (6 mm) diameter by 1/16 inch (1.5 mm) thick N52 Neodymium (Reinforcements)
PLEASE NOTE – I felt like 1/8 inch was slightly too broad, and the drill bit was barely within the margin for the wing attachment points. If you want to play safe and you don’t already have a million 1/8 inch magnets lying around, please consider trying 3/32 inch magnets instead.
Other required materials include:
– Appropriately sized drill bit (I used a 1/8 inch bit)
– Drill, Dremel, or Pin Vice for drilling
– Exacto Knife
– Super Glue
Optional:
– 1/16″ Drill Bit for pilot holes
– Blue Tac (or the equivalent)
Method:
This is a bit of an unusual magnetization process because it requires you to start before even assembling the model.
On each side of the torso, identify the inset where the wing should connect. It will be towards the top of the back, and be easily identifiable from the outside.
I like to scratch the center line for both vertical and horizontal (you can draw this in with a marker if you prefer) so that I can more easily line up my drill bit.
From here, you can either drill a pilot hole or you can do what I’ve done and just twist your Exacto Knife in the center to make an indentation. I went with this option because getting a drill bit into this place is already difficult, and I didn’t want to do it multiple times.
Once your “pilot hole” or guide punch is in place, angle the drill bit as close to straight on as you can and then drill the hole with the 1/8 Inch Drill Bit.
Be careful not to punch through too hard or you will gouge a piece out of the top of your model like I did here. Easy enough to fix with Green Stuff, but annoying.
Make sure you have cleared the exit hole of all debris so that the wing can still make a flush connection on the inside. You may need to trim down some plastic inside the slot with your Exacto Knife.
Once again, I’ve scratched the vertical and horizontal center lines, as well as punched a small pilot hole, with my Exacto Knife. I was too lazy to clear my Blue Tac off from a mild tangent I went down in the build process so just ignore the bluish stuff.
Next, I highly recommend drilling a pilot hole on this piece because it is so small. This is done with the 1/16 inch drill bit. I also don’t recommend drilling all the way through as I’ve done here because you can risk damaging the sculpted muscle on the top.
Next, drill a shallow hole with the 1/8 inch drill bit. Because we plan to use a magnet with a thickness of 1/32 inch for this piece, it doesn’t have to go all the way through the plastic, which is very important since there wouldn’t be any plastic left if we did.
Here is the magnet glued in place. It’s a little proud, but that’s okay because the wing slot has a bit of wiggle room. This is the 1/8 inch wide by 1/32 inch thick magnet.
Next, to make sure the polarity is correct, I put the wing into its place with its magnet showing through.
With the wing still in position, let one of the 1/8 inch diameter by 1/16 inch thick magnets naturally attract to the magnet in the wing. I used a toothpick to prod it into position. You will note that the magnet is sticking out from the drilled hole a lot. This is fine. I chose this thicker magnet so that the attractive force will be stronger, and the inside of the body will never be seen anyway.
It’s time to slather the magnet in an excessive amount of glue. After a few seconds, it should be okay to slide the wing out of the inset, as the horizontal pull will prevent the body magnet from following it.
Now it’s time for a reinforcement magnet, which makes up for the super weak magnets in the wings. We will glue a 1/4 inch diameter by 1/16 inch thick magnet to the already set magnet. This does two things.
First, it will contact the body wall, giving the magnets another place to be secure.
Second, it will continue to increase the magnetic strength of the attraction, allowing the wings to be very strong without using gigantic magnets on the connection point itself.
You can see the magnets peaking through the body from the top here.
Here’s a quick look at the other wing with the correct drill depth. I put the pilot hole in with the 1/16 inch drill bit to a depth of slightly more than 1/16 inch, and then used the 1/8 inch drill bit to make a shallow hole.
You can make sure your drill bit does not go farther than you want by measuring up the bit from the tip to your desired position, and then either marking it with Sharpie all the way round or by wrapping it with a small length of electrical or masking tape.
Or you can eyeball it.
Here’s the other side with all three magnets installed.
And here’s the finished model!
The magnetic connection is strong enough that as long as the wings aren’t held lengthwise in a vertical position, they can both hold up the entire weight of the model while still being easy to remove for transport and storage. If your magnets are weaker than N52, you might consider a little Blue Tac in the wing inset to help the magnets hold it steady.
Conclusion:
This is not a particularly easy model to magnetize. The angles are strange, the tolerences are very tight, and the exercise of much caution and care is needed to make it work without failure.
If you are not practiced with a drill or dremel or pin vice, I highly recommend practicing on some spare sprue first so that you can get a feel for how the plastic responds to the bit.
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