Tutorial Magnetizing Terradons / Ripperdactyls Tutorial from @Aginor and @Seraphage

Terradons to Rippers... that's a really tough one.
I remember back then deciding that it wasn't possible because of the two versions sharing some parts that made it very hard to find "interfaces" to place magnets on.

But since then I have progressed a bit with my magnetizing (you mentioned the crazy Stegadon with the 64 magnets ) so as I have a box on my table right now I'll give it another look!

 

Ok I have taken apart my kit and put some subassemblies together with putty.
Here are my first results, I can go into more detail soon I think:

- It is possible without sculpting, but there will be some minor inconsistencies because there are parts you cannot magnetize. Not many though!
- you probably won't get all parts to look seamless, but if you paint it well you might be able to cover the seams up
- you will probably need a few little things in addition to your box contents.
- you will have to make one or two decisions, mostly between workload and style or number of options.

A few details to come very soon. I am working out some possibilities right now.

 

Ok here we go.
I decided I'll go ahead and try it myself. Not the highest priority project for me right now so I won't finish them for quite a while but I am interested enough in it so I can at least plan a bit for it.


First I'll tell you what won't work:

1: swapping the claws on the wings. You will have to choose between the Ripper Claws (one big, claw on each wing) or Terradon Claws (two smaller ones). I would probably choose Ripper claws but it really is up to you. Those parts are too thin to magnetize but at least both fit to both variants and both look cool.

2: The ring around the neck to which the rider is attached. It is impossible to remove it from the neck once you attached it (it is too small to slip it over the wider part of the neck). There are a few possible ways around that problem but probably the easiest way is to get a small metal or plastic ring from a craft store, or make one yourself out of... wood or green stuff or something.
I have a possible way around that problem but I'll have to see whether my idea works. More about that later.

3: You will probably have to replace the transparent rods or get three additional ones from somewhere, as it is difficult to attach them to the body without glueing them on. Not impossible though so you might make it happen.
No problem for me since I was going to replace them with steel anyway like I did with my other Terradons.

Those are the only problems I still see.

More to come soon.

 

Rough assembly for the bodies as far as I can tell right now:

- Assemble the head and the neck of both versions.
- put the body together but do not glue the neck or tail to it. EDIT: thats actually a bad advice. You should probably place the rear facing magnet first, see my post below.
- glue the legs to the tails.
- choose which claws you want for the wings and glue them on.
- don't attach the rings yet

That's pretty much it. Next is the magnets.

 

From just putting it together with putty it seems the magnets for the beast's body are mostly straightforward.
The tails and the necks are solid parts and the front part of the body is thick enough so you can rather easily put a 2x1mm neodymium disc magnet in those.
There is one tough one, and that's the one in the back of the body where the tail gets attached. That part is hollow so what you have to do is to put something in there to glue the magnet to. A sprue part will do. Take your time to get the angles right.

If you followed my bad advice and glued the body together already: just put a ball of green stuff or similar material in there.

EDIT: no wait. I think I made a mistake. I notice that the rods are actually attached to the tail parts.
That's kiiinda bad news since it means that the whole model except the tail and the legs will be attached to that one magnet back there. That is not going to work. But we cannot use a larger magnet so we will need to strengthen that junction in some way. We will need a 1mm or so diameter metal part. In a pinch a toothpick part will do but that's not very durable.
I'll think about it and come up with something tomorrow.

 

General hints:
As always with magnets keep the following things in mind:
- material. Neodymium magnets are an order of magnitude stronger than regular iron magnets. They cost a cent a piece. Use those.
- size. Big magnets are stronger than small ones. In our case I am rather sure that small magnets will suffice.
- direction. Magnets are way stronger when facing each other straight. So always look from two directions.
And the most important thing about direction: don't place them facing 180° wrong. I help myself by using two magnets glued into color coded sprue parts. Blue and red.
Also: magnets are not strong against rotating the attached part. So make sure that part touches in a way it cannot rotate. I am fairly sure that's not a problem in this particular case but in some cases it is.
- distance. They should touch each other. Magnetism gets weaker with the square of the distance. So make sure that they are as close as possible.

 

Added another paragraph to my post above. We need to strengthen one of those places (tail attachment) since a magnet will not reliably hold those together. The whole model is attached there.

 

Can I add something about using magnets, if you struggle to align magnets you can substitute one magnet for a larger magnet or a piece of mild steel, make it large than the magnet so it has a bigger surface to hit, if you still struggle pin the joint.

 

Glad to be of use!

I am kinda hyped about the project as well, especially since I wanted to do it last time but wasn't yet able to.
I built my first Terradons shortly after starting the hobby, in December 2016 I think, which is funny because that is just one year ago, but my skills progressed a lot in that time.

Tonight I'll try out a few ways to strengthen that one critical junction. I am relieved the parts at least fit (except minor stuff).


As for the riders:
Those seem to be rather easy at least. Well... easy it the wrong word I guess but part of that I know from my Terradons.
The first question here is: Do you want all options?

Here is the list of what to do:
- Terradons: Master of the Skies or Alpha
- Terradon Alpha: Bola or Javelin
- Terradons: Other two riders Bola or Javelin
- Rippers: With or without Alpha
- Rippers: Weapon arm
- Rippers: Add shield to the other arm.


The good thing about the Master of the Skies is: He doesn't have weapon options, he cannot be used for anything when building Ripperdactyls, and he is actually a distinct model. He shares no parts with the Alpha.
The bad thing is: He doesn't have the same pose as the Alpha so you have to improvise a handle to hold on to the same magnetized spot as the Alpha.
I did that for my Terradons and it is possible.

The weapon options for the Terradon rider Alpha and his pals work this way:
The Bolas and the Javelins each have the hand attached to them. The arms have a diameter of slightly less than 2mm, which means they are a bit thinner than the magnets I use. So you just put the magnets on there and paint them like metal so they look like some bracelet.
The arm is going to look slightly longer that way, if you don't like that you can just shorten the arm by two millimeters using a file or sandpaper.

The conversion for the riders between Rippers and Terradons is a bit different. You have a few options here:
1a: Use the weapons for Rippers
1b: Use the Terradon riders' arms with the Javelins. Those are a bit smaller.
2: Alpha or not is just a matter of headgear I think. (Doing this step from memory, I am not at home right now) That's too small to magnetize so I'd recommend to just put it on, but if you have more than 3 Rippers in one unit you have to tell your opponent which one counts as the Alpha, so make those distinct in some way (by using color or something).

Magnetizing the shield arms is rather easy, just put a magnet into the arms at a 90° angle so it sticks out to the side, and attach another magnet onto the inside of the shield.

If you want to use Ripper weapons you have to magnetize the shoulder, because the Ripper weapons have the whole arm attached to them, not only the wrist. I have to check those sizes, I am not sure whether that is easy to put magnets in there.


More to come soon. Keep in mind this isn't an actual howto yet, just the preparation. We will condense it into the actual howto at a later point.

 

Good point @Crowsfoot !
The junction is a tiny bit weaker then, but that doesn't matter for weapons because those are usually light.

 

Once he does the tutorial we might get a sticky

 

Ok I think I have figured the tail thing out.

Remember the Microsoft Office Assistant (Clippy in English, Karl Klammer in German)?
He is here to help you!

...you just have to kill him and cut his corpse apart to use it as a support structure!

Ok seriously. I just tried it. I drilled small holes (a few mm deep) into both tails to stick a paper clip part into it. It works.
The holes don't have to be perfectly centered, just identical for both tails. Then use one of the tails to find the right position and glue the paper clip part into the body.
Remember to leave enough space for the magnet to fit into the middle of the tail.

Here are a few shots. Not perfect since it is my first try. I think Ill try and put it together and see if it works or if I have to try something else.

 

Thanks!

I assembled the heads and tails and it looks decent.
I messed up the rear end a bit so I will need some putty to fill the gap. Not severe but I think I can do better so the junction is barely visible.
I will also try and cover up in that area with the paint job.


Now I am contemplating which claws to use...
Originally I wanted to use the Ripper claws but now that I see it....
I think the smaller (Terradon) ones look better if you take into account that they must fit both variants.
IMO the Terradon claws look less impressive but OK on the Ripper and I can imagine that it can slash with those as well, while the Ripper claws look a bit out of place on the Terradon...

 

So.. any opinions on the claws?