Death Company Dreadnought: Construction & magnetising

To add to the ranks of the Death Company, I've also wanted to add a dreadnought while I paint my guys in black. The core sarcophagus though I've wanted to replace as I have some plans to chop up the one that comes in the BA kit... 

I actually quite like the bulk of the DC dread parts... but got hold of a Forgeworld Chaplain dreadnought for the torso and powerunit. Which leads to challenge #1... the chaplain legs have a ball and socket joint while the regular plastic dreads have a dished surface for positioning. 

The chaplain legs are going into the bits box, but that means having to do something with the torso to make it fit the legs. 

Solution - chop off the bottom of the socket joint, sand the top of the plastic legs down (which also creates a hole) and then stick a great big rod of coathanger wire in between them to act as a big pin. These can still be rotated for final positioning once the parts are painted, but should give plenty of surface. Normally I wouldn't go that heavy duty but the resin body is *very* heavy. 

The dread feet were welded to a standard base (yes... nothing fancy - but then I've never built a marine dreadnought... seemed fitting). Then holes drilled into the legs and through the feet. These will take paperclip-pins for some extra stability when gluing. 

I've developed something of a magnetisation obsession and working on a first dreadnought was a chance to let some of that loose... step one was bolting some washers onto the arms. Technically, the DC arms will stay the same but this was a good test for future lascannon/missile/etc options on a red one. Plus it makes them posable anyway. 

The torso itself gets a few 3mm magnets (these are actually the longer 3.5mm deep ones) drilled in to hold the arm. Pin left on for a bit of stability as it will lock into the arms too. 

Seems to be working ok so far - the arms stick on ok. 

For yet more funkiness - the end of the arms are then sliced off, and a 6mm disc magnet inserted into the arm and the plastic stuck back on. 

Yes, this looks basically the same as before... 

...with the added advantage of now being able to swap out furioso claws with blood talons when desired. 

More magnets... since the arms can take any 2 from storm bolter, flamer and meltagun, I also filed down the tops of the weapon mountings and added a thin 3mm (~1mm thick) magnet and a matching one underneath the arms.

I now have a rather extensive pile of bits for priming. A couple of these have been kept separate mainly for painting, but even once finished that will be 11 magnetised parts for switching around.