I am planning on making a large, magnetic block knife holder. How would I go about getting a nice piece of steel, say an 1/8 inch thick and cut in the shape that I need, that would be magnetic so as to hold the knives?
Any ideas?
Thx, dave
Perhaps rare earth magnets stratecially placed behind your piece of steel?
Yeah, save some effort and just use some rare earth magnets. Drill some holes most of the way through in the back of your wood, glue a rare earth magnet in each hole, place your knives in front.
Easiest thing is to buy a cheap, but ugly, magnetic knife rack and re-use the innards.
The usual design is two steel strips, edge on to the knives, and either a number of small magnets, or a magnetic strip between them.
Good magnetic racks have "pole pieces", some magnetic but unmagnetised iron that "connects" both poles of the magnet to the knife, and has them spaced a short distance apart. If you use a powerful rare-earth magnet in a drilled hole, you only expose one pole of the magnet. This gives you clamping that's too strong when close up and falls off immediately with distance. They're good clamps like that,but nasty for storage - they "snatch" when you get close..
In other words, don't hold your knives by the blade when you're placing them against your knife rack.
I'd go along with the rare earth magnets. But if he still wants the appearance, he should rout out for the steel, then rout holes behind that [from the front] for the magnets. The glued-in steel [or drill and screw] will hold the knives anywhere along the length.
The commercial magnic racks I have seen do not look very satisfactory. If you do not cleanly grab the one knife you want you run the risk of dislodging three or four at once. I don't want my hand in the midst of all those falling knives.
I believe one could do a decent job with rare earth magnets but one needs a good demonstration model before building a finished product.
The old method of slots works very well. I have mounted a set of horizontal slots just under the cupboard so the knives do not take any counter space. They are firmly supported and easy to grab.
Dick
and can be even better with a few RE magnets... gotta love those lil suckers!
mac
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