🎨 Paints - Magnetic Paint
Magnetic paints can be used to make magnetized miniatures attach to terrain and carrying cases. It's essentially just paint with some metallic flakes in it to allow magnetism.
I've tested Tikkurila Magnetic paint that you get in Finland but I guess they all work more or less the same.
Two layers of metallic paint is usually enough. The pull is weaker than with steel plates but enough to attach e.g.
- 28 mm mini with 5x2 mm magnets: sideways with a single layer of metallic paint, upside down with two layers.
- 28 mm mini with 8x2 mm magnet: upside down with a single layer of metallic paint.
- 28 mm mini with 8x1 mm magnets: upside down with 2 layers of metallic paint, shake resistance with 1 layer of paint.
- for my XPS dungeon tiles that have two 5x2 mm magnets per side and weight 3 g: 2 layers of metallic paint is enough to keep them upside down.
The metallic paint I've tested works fine with all the materials I've tried: wood, balsa, cork, cardboard, chipboard, XPS. It does seem to warp unprimed medium chipboard a bit though.
Varnish has minimal effect on the magnetism. As a test, I brush varnished 10 thick layers of AK Interactive Ultra-Matte on 1, 2 and 3 layers of the magnetic paint. Only the 1 layer of magnetic paint had a noticeable chance in magnetism. I didn't test but painting over the magnetic paint should show similar results.
Prime soft surfaces. If painting metallic paint on top of something soft like XPS, I would recommend first priming the surface with something a bit harder like Mod Podge. Handling might leave indents on the metallic paint alone.