A certain attraction
When I was a kid, I was a junior scientist, fascinated with everything scientific chemistry set, lenses, telescopes, fossil hunting, model rockets, you name it. The highlight of my…
When I was a kid, I was a junior scientist, fascinated with everything scientific chemistry set, lenses, telescopes, fossil hunting, model rockets, you name it. The highlight of my year was getting the new Edmund Scientific catalog. I stayed in the house a lot.
One of my greatest fascinations was magnets, and I ordered a lot of them from Edmund when my allowance built up enough. I think I had hundreds of them, in all shapes and sizes. From horseshoe magnets to electromagnets, I had fun with them all.
Well, Im all grown up and mature now more or less but Ive retained that childish fascination with magnets. (Ive retained a number of other childish traits, too, but well save those for a future blog.)
There are a number of magnets in my shop. One on the side of my drill press holds the chuck key; a magnetic strip on the top of my bubble level lets me stick it to a steel cabinet when not in use; one on my push stick keep it secured to the side of the table saw; plus, there are several others.
In researching an article on jig hardware recently, I found a new magnet. From an Australian company called Magswitch, these super-strong magnets have something Ive never seen before: an on/off switch. Im not kidding; theres an on/off switch on the top that changes the magnet from zero attraction to cant-get-it-off-the-table-saw attraction with the flick of a finger. Ive never seen anything so cool.
These things work because each one is really two magnets. A smaller cylindrical magnet fits inside a larger cylindrical magnet. Twisting the switch rotates the inner magnet so the poles can be aligned or unaligned. When aligned the poles cancel the magnetism; twist the switch the other way and the two magnets work together to make it incredibly strong. Ingenious. The company has a couple versions of the magnet, including one specifically for woodworking jigs called, appropriately if not cleverly, a MagJig. It has a mounting flange, so it can easily be screwed to whatever jig you make that needs to anchor to a steel surface.
This isnt a commercial plug or anything like that, but just a Really Cool Thing that I thought you might like to know about. Ive always considered woodworking to be fun, but I dont often get to play with toys in the shop. This is one time I can.
Im glad I didnt outgrow that.
Till next time,
A.J.
A.J. Hamler is the former editor of Woodshop News and Woodcraft Magazine. He's currently a freelance woodworking writer/editor, which is another way of stating self-employed. When he's not writing or in the shop, he enjoys science fiction, gourmet cooking and Civil War reenacting, but not at the same time.