Magnetic Back Board in the Shed/Over Workbench - Would it be any Good

[prelude]

A former employer once gave away a ****ton of neodymium magnets and I have used them in my mancave. Since the bigger ones are almost lethal (you can actually get seriously hurt when two of them slam together).

I have found that these magnets are too strong for their purpose. Sure, you can use smaller magnets which is nice but they do attract swarf a lot and it sticks to damn hard. When using old fridgedoor magnet strips you need a larger strip to stick a tool onto, but it's much easier to wipe of the swarf I have found.

regarding magnetization of tools: I have found that it only happens with tools that I "slide" of the magnet, ie, move the iron tool over the magnet. Tools that just hang there don't really get magnetized and I drop a spanner often enough that it get's "undone" anyway

All in all, I have not found it to be the best solution for tools tbh but with the "soft" magnets at least it is manageable.

PS I returned to drawers myself eventually.

Cheers,
-P

[windsock]

Since the bigger ones are almost lethal (you can actually get seriously hurt when two of them slam together).

Yep, a couple of years back I was making an axial flux wind turbine magnet rotor using 2" x 1" x 0.5" N50 neos and had one leap off the bench and slam into one I had just separated from the bundle. Thankfully the magnet leaving the bench pulled the magnet out of my hand and they smashed (SMASHED!) into each other in mid air. No blood lost, very lucky. For weeks afterwards I was finding shards and chips and chunks of neo magnet fragments stuck to any steel in the workshop. I had a lot of steel things in there at the time. Very thankful I wasn't gripping the magnet hard as I would have lost skin and maybe finger alignment. Very dangerous beasties when of any size and power.

[austastar]

Hi,
Old hard drives are an excellent source for very strong magnets,
Cheers