Balancing act: Magnets Vs. Tie Downs

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If there has been one problem ANY stopmotion puppet fabricator or animator has to endured over the past 100 years is how to keep your puppet secured to the floor and stopping them from falling over.
I remember Ray Harryhausen telling me how on Mighty Joe Young, Willis O'Brien tested a new tie down system where a hook would be inserted into the foot and attached to a steel bar which it would lock the foot into place, sadly it was discovered the foot wasn't truly locked to the floor and would shuffle around on the animation rushes so this technique was quickly abandoned.

What is the purpose of a tie down though? A tie down is basically a engineered way to cheat gravity while acting as gravity. In term of sculpture, a model requires certain key points designed to take the strain of gravity pulling the object back to the floor, tie downs do exactly the same thing. 

There are two forms of tie down, the threaded rod and the magnetic (which tend to use the rare earth version of magnets)

Magswitch Magnets

In recent years I happened across a company called Magswitch which enable you to switch the magnetic field on and off. The larger you go the stronger the magnetic pull. I did try one of these on my Xenotyrannus Rex armature but found the magnetic pull was diffused through the perforated steel sheet and also pulled all my jointed toes inwards due to the steel from said joints being attracted to the magnet. but these would work really well with plated feet, such as hooves or shoe shaped feet.

Rare Earth Magnets
Image result for rare earth magnet
These are strong magnets that unlike the Magswitch have a constant magnetic field, when two of these magnets come into contact with each other they can sometimes shatter one another and these can also cause serious injury if you happen to get your skin caught in the middle. These magnets come in a wide range of sizes, but specialized versions with a handle are either found in specialist shops.

Threaded Tie Downs
Image result for threaded tie-down
Threaded tie downs are fairly traditional and are basically a nut and screw and can take the shape of anything as long as your screw matches your nut thread (normally M3). These can also be custom made and fairly cheap depending on how you want them to be. The benefit of a threaded tie down is that once your puppet is tied in place it won't move. however you do end up destroying your set with holes. these can be edited out of course or covered with plasticine mixed to match your set colour. 

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