I have been working on this very thing for a while now and have come up with a solution that worked for me (so far).

Good find on the IKEA boards. I wish I'd thought of that before I bought the board I'm using.

Yes, rare earth magnets are very strong and will tear through the nice glue job you did on your paperboard. I found a way around this that I will post along with pictures tonight.

Sorry about the pictures being so blurry. Even though they are so blurry I think they get the point across... Let me know if they don't.

My first approach was to use the dungeons portion of the Classic Combo set, but I wanted to add some weight to them. So I bought a bunch of very small magnets and a magnetic white board (from Staples for far too much... Also, I think it's going to warp over time because it was made to be hung not placed on a table-top. I'll go with IKEA if it becomes unusable....).

Anyway I was planning on spray-painting the magnets black and using them in the corners of the dungeon pieces I was making. But then I tried it and found that it didn't work the way I was expecting. The wall portions of each piece would get in the way of one-another and I couldn't get the grid to match up properly.

So I decided to go with 1" minichunk, thinking that I would use the small magnets to secure the walls down by their bases. The problem is that the bases weren't wide enough, so the magnets couldn't stay on top of them well enough and it became unstable and fiddly. Okay, scratch that...

Then I tried cutting a slit in the edge of each piece I'd made and each piece I was making, and bought a bunch of strong wide disc magnets. This seemed like a good idea at first... My favorite part of it was it made construction easier. I really dislike the "put glue on all tabs and then push them all against another piece of paper" seam. The tabs often fold too far and then don't actually get glued to the piece of paper. So the slot meant I could reach inside each model with a flat butter knife and push each tab against the paper.

And magnet-wise, for the 1"x1" pieces I would slide in a single 4 pound magnet. For the 1" x 3" pieces I would slide in a 2 pound magnet so it would be on the far side of the model, put it on the board, then pin the side close to the slit with another magnet. There were two problems with this approach though... The pieces held well enough, but picking them up was a huge problem. The bottom seam had too much stress being put on it and the magnets would often slip out the bottom of the model one way or another. Worse still, having two magnets in a single model meant that the two magnets would collide in an uncontrolled manner and could shatter themselves that way (they're strong but brittle).

So then I tried putting some string on a strip of paper. I'd slide the strip into each model to cover the bottom, then arrange the magnets over the strip of paper. Then when I was done with the model I could pull the strip of paper out by the string and the magnets would safely exit the model. The trouble with this approach was that it was incredibly fiddly and too time consuming.

Then I was thinking I would go the velcro/masterboard route, but I'd already invested so much money in the white board and the magnets. Plus when I tried that I had trouble gluing the velcro to the masterboard. So I figured I'd try making a foamboard base for each model that would house the magnet. At first I tried scraping away all of the foam in a circle large enough for the magnet. This had two problems... The first is that I'd have to glue the magnet inside the foamboard, and the small square of foamboard was severely weakened from having so much foam removed.



So I tried a new piece of foam with two differences, I removed enough foam so that the magnet could be added or removed from the side, and left a thin layer of foam on the bottom of the area I hollowed out to add strength. I was thinking I would glue this to the paperboard base of my models. This was good, but not great because it wasn't strong enough.



Then I realized that I could add the strength I needed to such a piece by gluing another unmodified piece of foamboard on top of the hollowed out piece. Sure enough... It had the slot I needed to add and remove my magnet and the strength to be removed from the board without getting bent.



So now I need to add foamboard bases to the models I've made, and to the ones I haven't made yet, then make the slotted pieces and glue them on to the base, as you can see below. In this way, I can just slide the magnets into the slots and then place the piece. I'm continuing to cut a slit in the bottom of each model because I still don't like that kind of seam and I still like being able to use a knife to help me out with it.






Thoughts?

That's an innovative solution you've come up with. The idea of creating a slotted magnetic piece seems a pretty elegant solution. Relatively quick and easy and adds strength. I'm a little unclear on a few things, though.

What is the total height of one of the slotted magnetic pieces? Are the magnetic base pieces placed under the bottom of the base of the model? Do they then raise the model up the thickness of the magnetic base piece? If so, how do you correct the gap between the base of the model and the board?

Also, are you going with the slots in the base piece because you want to be able to remove the magnets, thus freeing the magnets up to be used in other terrain pieces when you are not using a particular piece of terrain?

Since the durability of the foamcore is an issue and your solution was to cover the slot with another piece of foamcore (if I understood you correctly) maybe you could use something a little stronger than foamcore. (Thereby reducing thickness of your magnetic base piece) US Plastics is a company in Ohio that makes different plastic products. One of the things they make is Expanded High Density Rigid PVC Sheet. It's branded as Sintra by another company. It's a lot stronger than foamcore, and not too pricey, especially if you're only using small pieces to hold your magnets. And US Plastics has one of the lowest prieces I've found for it. I have a big piece of this that I haven't done anything with yet. Here's a link:
http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/produc ... 5Fid=10432

Anyway, thanks for sharing your ideas. I hope I didn't ask too many questions but it is very interesting to me and I just want to make sure I understand. Good luck with it and I'm looking forward to hearing more on how you progress.

Luckyjoe

This is very nearly what I was talking about. Only difference is that in my initial thought, I was going to put magnets in a foamcore masterboard and permanently affix magnets to the pieces as well. This is MUCH more economical and gives very nearly the same result. Only difference from my original idea is that it would, because of having like sized and positioned magnets, the pieces would "snap" into place. Not sure thats worth the expense, though.

I'd be interested in seeing what you do Kane.

Sorry, but I can't seem to replace my pictures tonight. For some reason my cellphone won't send pictures to my email account anymore. Yet another reason to get a camera...

Thanks, Tiny. That was a perfect explanation. As to the Expanded High Density Rigid PVC I'm not sure. I haven't built anything with it yet. I initially bought it because I wanted to try it out for use as modular street corner boards for a build using Andorax City Planning method. But it seems to flex a lot more than foamcore. I imagine smaller pieces will be less likely to flex so much, though. Perhaps I need a thicker or more rigid brand for larger pieces.

Luckyjoe

I have been thinking on this scenario for quite a while. Using the CD 1.5" I have used 1/2" X 1/2" square magnets with PSA on one side of them. I use one magnet in each corner of a 3"X3" floor piece with a fifth magnet in the center. The magnets are only a 1/16" thick. On 3" walls I use 2 magnets and on single tile squares I only use one. The magnet is strong enough to hold the pieces in place and large enough so as to not allow the pieces to tip easily.
For the masterboard, 1/8" steel is overkill. It's heavy and can be very expensive. What I have done is taken a sheet of 20 gauge steel ( roughtly 1/32" thick, thus weighing a quarter of the weight of an equal size piece of 1/8" steel). I had an old 3' x 3' card table. I took a piece of metal 2" larger on both directions than my card table, notched the corners 1" X 1" and bent the edges down 1". Then I glued the steel to the top of the card table and spray painted the steel black, after wiping it down with some denatured alcohol to remove any oil. Works like a dream. I have taken the table and put it on edge and none of the tiles or walls have moved, unless you bounce the table rather roughly. I am going to do the same thing with Mini-Chuck which should work better, because the difference in the size of the magnets and the 1" scale means there will only be a 1/4" distance between the edge of a 1" X 1" tile and the edge of the magnet. I wish I had a digital camera to take some pictures but Idon't so I can't.