What Are Rare Earth Magnets?

If you don't already know about rare earth magnets, you need to know about rare earth magnets. They are crazy cool and they do have a lot of applications in your woodworking world. Applications in your woodworking world. So let's first talk about what is a rare earth magnet. There are a bunch of different examples here on the table of different configurations of rare earth magnet.

The bottom line is they're made up of rare earth materials and when all that stuff comes earth materials and when all that stuff comes together, we end up with a magnet that is together, we end up with a magnet that is incredibly strong. So if I take this and this 3/4 inch MDF. And I put that magnet on the bottom. And I throw that magnet on the top. The magnet is reaching through the MDF and grabbing that other magnet if I double up the magnets underneath.

Well, oh, that's right, it's gonna start to get in trouble. That's how well they stick right through my hand. If I double them up like that, I'm increasing the amount of magnetism they're giving off. So how does this fit into your woodworking? There are a lot of places where these things are very useful, so I've got a few examples here.

When I made this bottle opener. I embedded rare earth magnets here so that when you crack a top. They stick to those magnets and again we're reaching through the walnut two magnets there grabbing those bottle tops. When I made this knife rack. Same thing.

That's got rare earth magnets brought epoxy into that groove right there. When I made this craft table. And I was thinking about, you know, if I ever do a project with brads or pins and I want to make sure they don't end up all over the floor where a cat's gonna mess with them, maybe I could do something with rare earth magnets, so there's a rare earth magnet embedded right under that dowel, and that will grab any steel stuff that I'm using on top of the table. So as you're looking to use them in your projects, it's important to keep in mind they're available in a bunch of different configurations. We have these about 1/8 inch thick, 1 and 25 or so in diameter.

We have some also about 1/8 inch thick, a little bit smaller in diameter. Small diameter but thicker so where I'm going with this is that you can fit your magnet. Small diameter but thicker so where I'm going with this is that you can fit your magnet choice to what you're trying to do in the back of that knife block. I use these magnets that came in long rectangles like this because that better lent itself to fitting them into that groove in the back. When they come, oh they're okay, so this gives me a chance to talk about something else.

When they come, they're often separated by pieces of plastic. That's great because when two of these end up face to face, they can be difficult to separate. I'll talk about how to get them apart. The other thing to be aware of is they're very strong and they're very brittle, so that snap that just accidentally happened broke that magnet right there, so you have to be a little bit careful with them that way. You also want to be careful on the snap in that the attraction here is very strong.

If especially little fingers, like a kid, get in between two of these magnets, you will get a blood blister. Ask me how I know. When you do need to take them apart and they're like together like this, your best bet is to slide. Like that rather than try to pull them apart this way because you probably won't be able to do that, but if you slide them, you can overcome their magnetism. Another configuration that's very handy is this one.

So that magnet's already got a hole drilled in it and a counter bore, and that allows me to use the screw that came with it. So I could just surface mount this and fasten it to a surface if you're doing something like rare earth magnets that are gonna become a door holder closer. This is a good magnet for that, and this setup so very cool things to know about lots of applications for these in your shop once you do know about them. You can get the stuff, you can get these magnets in a variety of places, pick the size, pick the configuration that's gonna work with your project, be careful when you're handling them so you don't snap them, you don't get your fingers caught, and hopefully they don't get stuck together and have fun using them.