Magnets from old PCs?

Yup, in the hard drives.

Couple screws, 10 minutes per drive maybe, 2 very strong magnets. The blood blisters are a free benefit if you choose to look at it that way.

Dave Hinz

Be careful about letting the magnets slam into each other, they will crack and-or chip. The older larger ones will hold together with my hand in between, awes the grandkids to see it 'sticking' to my hand. Joe

Thanks. I think I'll take a crack at one of them and see what it's like. Further bulletins as events warrant. (FBAEW?.....Hmmm...what's the process by which a new acronym is added to the compendium of usenet jargon?)

JP

Careful when opening the hard drives. If it has everything deleted you're safe, but if the drive is nearly full, do it over a trash can. All the 1's and 0's spill out and make a mess worse than packing peanuts.

rimshot...

don't forget to tip your waitress ladies and gentlemen...

John

The magnets in the newer hard drives are pretty unrewarding. They are strong but very small. Now back in the 3380 days you got MAGNETS (the size of pavers)

I've killed a few HD's, and used the magents to keep things like the chuck key on my drill press. They're a funny shape and there's usually another chunk of metal attached to them, so I haven't found a use for embedding them in a project like you might for the nice round ones from Lee Valley.

As others have mentioned, they are powerful, so it's not a good idea to let the kids play with them (at least not ones the age of my kids).

Just a tip:

To get the magnets off of their steel backing you just soak them in acetone overnight then slip them off.

-j

Well yes, of course, but keep in mind if it's less than 80% full, you can run a defrag so that all the bits are on the platters below the top one. That way they don't spill out because the top one acts as a lid.

Just watch that you don't get any on your hands...

Dave "Is it a cliche' yet?" Hinz

Others have mentioned some of the cautions of using these. Here's another, keep them well away from any magnetic storage media (floppies, zip drives) and well away from computer monitors. Strange, unbeneficial things can happen if you don't.

Yeah, it would suck if your fingernail polish came off. ;-)

brian

Get bigger, more powerful, donut shaped magnets out of dead microwaves. Took one apart and found 2 large magnets.

The magnets you're referring to are called "neodymium magnets" ... or "rare earth magnets". Neodymium is a 'rare earth' element. The term 'rare earth' was used many years ago when such metals were in fact rare.

Neodymium is, as one reader noted, very fragile. If you break the magnets, you'll get sharp splinters. Be careful.

Personally, I would say just buy them! They're fairly inexpensive and you can more easily find the exact size and shape you're looking for.

Jack

Jay Pique wrote:

Yes, but then I'm a packrat. And don't overlook old microwave ovens, there's a couple of great doughnut-shaped magnets in each magnetron.

Be careful of the high voltage cap tho, short it out with a screwdriver, I have never found one live yet (they have a built-in bleeder resistor) but Murphy may live in your street.

Barry Lennox

I take advantage of the funny shape for holding tools... and the metal backings on the HD's that I took apart had 2 handy mounting holes on them..

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

Well folks, I've made an "executive decision" and decided not to take the magnets out of the old computers. I had access to a dozen or so that were being disposed of but I really need to start using my time more effectively if I'm going to try and improve my woodworking skills

- and my bottom line!

JP

If the drives work your time is better spent selling them on Ebay.

They are worth about a board foot of good wood each ;-)