Last night I measured the ball on the AT-ST head mount. It's 3/8th's of an inch or 9.5mm. I was thinking of cutting that off and gluing a 3/8th inch sphere magnet in the head socket. Then I was going to mount an appropriate size washer (I don't know what size yet) where the plastic ball was.

I was just wondering if anyone had tried this. I was going to use two part epoxy to mount the magnet in the head and the washer on the torso mount. Here's a link to the sphere magnet.

K&J Magnetics 3/8 inch sphere magnet

When I attempt this, I'll take plenty of pics and make a tutorial if no one has already.

Thanks,

XiliX

Yes, I have. I'll have to post pictures at some point...

I used KJ Magnetics as well

NSB6- Ball Bearing (mount to the "neck"-- removed part of the plastic to fit it in place of the 'ball'
https://www.kjmagnetics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=NSB6

R622CS-N. Countersunk Ring Magnet (Mounted to the "head")
https://www.kjmagnetics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=R622CS-N-N52

They did an article a few years back on modding X-Wing minis with magnets.

https://www.kjmagnetics.com/blog.asp?p=star-wars-x-wing

Has a nice chart to help know what kind of magnets to use. For the AT-ST, the ball is not a magnet, the countersunk ring is. If the ball were a magnet, then you'd have to line up the N-S polarity correctly (which I don't know how'd that'd work with a sphere).

Anyway, with the ball& ring, I'm able to rotate the head anyway I'd like, it's strong enough to not fall off accidentally.

Thanks Matroskin,

Glad to hear that worked for you. Looks like I'm taking the same approach but in reverse (ball magnet in head and washer in base). Hopefully mine will work as well as yours.

Thanks,

XiliX

I did it too... Used a ball replacing the plastic ball on the neck, then used a disc magnet in the head cause I couldn't find a washer or ring magnet the right size. The head sticks on firmly, but it's pretty slidey, so I made a friction washer out of foam card and it works like a champ. Will add photos also later...

Thanks CaptainRocket,

I was wondering how slippery the contact would be. Thin foam rubber sounds like a great solution. Thanks for the tip.

Thanks,

XiliX

I did this too. I can’t remember the exact size of everything (I can look it up if you want) but I put the ball on the base and the washer magnet in the head of the ATST.

Just like @CaptainRocket it sticks tight but slides around too easily. After sanding the ever loving heck out of the ball to no avail, I actually stuck some Tamiya masking tape over the washer and it now stays put reasonably well.

I just did this last night and am really happy with the results (ball on neck, countersink in head).

If the AT-ST head slides around too much, you can sand the metal ball to give it some bite.

And a big thumbs-up to K&J Magnetics! They fulfilled my order quickly and correctly.

I've wanted to do this since I got one, just haven't spent the time to determine the best sphere magnet to use. I was planning on putting about 3 regular disk magnets up in the neck to make contact with the sphere and hopefully that would hold it up.

You don't need to remove any plastic. Open up the back, put a powerful magnet on the bottom over the ball joint. Then you need to carefully drill out the plastic in the ball joint so you can get a magnet as close to the surface of that ball without drilling through the ball. That is the tricky part. Then put some strong magnets in the whole up to the ball joint. When done, no one can tell you even altered the model and the magnets, assuming correct polarity origination, well hold things together well enough.

As noted earlier, I used the NSB6- Ball Bearing and R622CS-N. Countersunk Ring Magnet from KJ Magnetics.

I realized that I actually put the ball bearing in the head, and the ring on the neck.

Here's some images:

Cutting off the top of the neck

With the Ring attached-- used a bit of Greenstuff

final view

Ball bearing. I think I went with putting the ball in the head since it easily fit here, and only had to carve into the neck portion.

Assembled.

Strength test. Holding it by the head and it stays together.

One of the tricky parts was figuring out how much to shave away on the neck to get the ring in place so that the overall height w/ the ball would be the same as if I did nothing to it.

Thanks Matroskin,

You confirmed what I thought, that the ball goes better in the head. I was wondering about what adhesive to use, but you answered that also. Thanks for the pics.

XiliX

My promised pics...