"Magnet glue and magnet sizes" Topic

Friends and enemies:

I've glued 1/8" x 1/16" magnets with Krazy Glue on the belly of a few planes I'm painting, and have had them separate on 3 of the 6 planes, when painting them stuck to magnets on the rods of my painting jig (which are pencils :D ). Has this happened so often to any of you? I need advice on how to make them resist the pulling force of the other magnets.

Also, i just ordered 100 1/8" x 1/16" magnets, and 50 1/8" x 1/32" skinnier ones. Are these 1/32" thick magnets good, ar are they maybe too weak? If anyone's tried them, I mean. I was thinking of gluing the 1/32" thick ones to the planes, and the 1/16" thick ones to the flight stands. The idea is the lower silhouette of the 1/32s, of course. But now I am concerned of the disparity in pulling force and if maybe the bigger magnets on the stands will rip the smaller ones from the minis when taking theminis off the poles!!

Hey. what ever happened to that old Krazy Glue, the kind that held a construction guy's weight from the iron beam from one drop on his helmet!!

Pájaro

(Also posted at games.groups.yahoo.com)

Don't glue them flat to the belly of the plane.
Drill out a hole that is barely large enough for the magnet to fit in.
I then use cyanpacrylate gel, and push the magnet in.

I have not had to drill out Corgi or 21st Century, though. They come prepared for display stands, and the magnets that I use fit right in the holes, coincidentally already along the center of gravity.
I can't tell you the size, since they were given to me by a friend.
However, you CAN either measure the already cast or drilled hole with a drill bit if you want to order magnets, OR get a drill bit to match your magnets.

Ah.
I just re-read, and you have rectangular magnets. I use small 1/8" or smaller round ones my friend bought on eBay.

In my experience, cyanoacrylate glue doesn't have much shear strength. That construction worker in the ad who was hanging by his helmet was being pulled straight up. If someone had kicked his helmet sharply from the side, I think he would have fallen.

I always use two-part epoxy to glue metal to metal.

Which is why I like to push them down in a tight hole.

I agree with John. I always pre-drill the aircraft, place a drop of Super Gel on the magnet and push it into the hole. I haven't had a magnet let go yet using this method. Have drilled the hole to deep a couple of times though.

Ray

I also am going to be mounting magnets to my flight stands but instead of having another magnet attached to the plane, would having a 1/8 diameter steel rod work? I would drill it into the plane per John OFM's suggestion and have it extend from the plane just a bit. That would be cheaper than buyng 2 sets of magnets and I wouldnt have to worry about polarity issues. any comments would be appreciated.

Thank you for the advice, kind sirs!

Progress report:

Cost is not so high, as I see it. I bought (redundantly speaking)

100 1/8" x 1/16"
50 1/8" x 1/32"

…from KJ Magnetics, at it was $18 USD with shipping and all.

Oh, and they are circular. Well, cylindrical.

The big hole drilling scares me a bit. 1/8" is too large a hole, and some planes have just that size of fuselage girth. Plus, I might, or WILL, surely damage the plane with my Puerto Rican sloppyness!

I did a field experiment with some planes, epoxying the 1/32" magnets to the plane's cute belly, and the 1/16" to the stand. They stick quite strongly. A 1/16" + 1/16" sticks BETTER, of course. But the skinny ones are less obvious.

These were my experimental minis, all small planes except the Mustang:
Raiden I-16
Raiden P-51D Mustang
GHQ Me-190G

I will try next the 1/32" magnets on heavier minis, and see how they hold them.

Thanks for the update PM. K&J sells good product at a good price. I bet pretty soon you'll wish you'd bought more in your first order.

May I suggest, for bigger planes use wider magnets.

I bought some magnets 3/16" wide by 1/32" thick. There's plenty of room for them on the belly of a big bomber. They're a bit wider than the end of the upright rod on my flight stand, but that's a no-problem, I just center the magnet on the rod and the epoxy holds everything securely.

I can still use these stands to mount fighters with 1/8" wide magnets if I need to. The 3/16" wide magnets provide plenty of support for Corgi 1/260 B-17s and other really big, heavy minis.

– Irv the Diecast Guy

I've decided that I don't like working with magnets so I reduced my involvement with them by 50%! I no longer worry about the polarity on the magnets either.

Instead of using a magnet on the stand and on the airplane I just use one on the stand. I put a piece of steel on the airplane mini.

I use #19 (bigger # is smaller diameter), #17, or #16 steel wire nails or #8 steel tacks. I look for packs that have the largest head/top. I cut the nail/tack down to less than a 1/4" or so. I drill a hole in the mini. Glue the nail in the hole et voila the mini has an attachment point that will stick to a magnet regardless of the polarity.

I've used the technique on 1/285-300 I-16s, Bredas, and Me-110s as well as some 1/600 B-24s. There are going to be some minis that will be a challenge (Ho-229 Flying Wing) but I bet they're less of a challenge than messing with tiny magnets.

The polarity issue is easy to solve:

I take my stack of magnets, and write a small dot with a red Sharpie on the same face of each one. Pry it off, paint the next one, pry it off, paint the next one… In 5 minutes, you do about 100 magnets.

Then, all the magnets end up with the same pole identified. I just glue them to the plane dot facing down (put glue on the other side). The stands also get the magnet with the dot facing the center of the Earth. In this case, obviously, the DOT SIDE gets glued to the stand. And happiness ensues. I have had only one mistake among like 60 planes, with a plastic stand, luckily, pasted the wrong way. My carelessness.

I tried marking one side of my 1/16" magnets and quickly got tired of that. They are the primary reason I went to the small steel nails.

Still not completely out on this one, but for 1/300 I'm sticking to clothing pins, and for 1/300 I'll be using pins (for use in dogfights, casue it looks nicer, sorry) and magnets (for VaS etc)….don't mind painting models twice.

Johan

For gluing the magnets a friend convinced me that Slow Gap super glue does the job. So far so good, my 5 min epoxy failed, but the Slow Gap is holding up well.