I really like some of the mods I've seen that involve magnets - either for positioning ships on their base/pegs, or for positioning "wings" such as you've all prolly seen on some of the Xizor mods, etc.

They sell some at my LGS, along with drill bits of the same circumference - but they're pretty expensive, and I have no way of knowing how strong these are until I actually buy them. So I thought I would ask the community:

For those of you who've used magnets on your own miniatures, what brand and size did you get, where did you get it from, and what should I look out for to avoid, and what should I look for when I am purchasing.

Thanks in advance.

The magnets you want are called rare-earth or neodymium magnets. They are typically silver colored. Generally speaking, any that you get in a size comfortable to work with will be adequate for the type of things we do with miniatures.

I get mine from amazing magnets

http://www.amazingmagnets.com/

But there are lots of sites selling them, look around.

One thing I will say, they should be washed before you glue them on. I have had a terrible time with them popping off after a while because I forgot to clean off the mold release agent first.

I have had a lot of luck with all my rare earth magnet purchases until recently, I bought one pack that was with a drill bit, they were the smallest I have ever worked with and they just don't have enough power to hold the minis on the base. So you CAN go too small even for minis of this size. I am sorry to say I threw away the packaging or I would tell you the size I got, but they were nearly identical to the diameter of the peg itself, so you may want to aim a hair larger. Just my 2 cents.

While I haven't done any magnets mods to my minis (yet at least), my goto source for neodymium has been http://www.kjmagnetics.com/

I will say though that these magnets can hurt you, easily. Nothing like 'omg my finger is gone', but they can pinch you pretty good if you're not careful. DO NOT let the magnets collide into each other as they can shatter themselves.

Neodymiums are rated in strength N35 to N52. All of which are stronger than your standard magnets. I wouldn't worry too much on the strength as long as they're neos.

For base/peg, The most common shape I've seen used are disc with a counter sunk hole. Then on the peg, a bearing is glue. I'm not sure on the ideal size though, but it looks like this: