I'm confused:

How do I learn what non-magnetic looks like when every magnet I try burns, melts or disintegrates when I attempt touching it to the heated steel?

Yes, this is in open air, and I am allowing less than 1 second of contact time. I have tried an extension stick magnet from the auto parts store, I have tried several refrigerator magnets too (some got gooey and melted)

When you were learning about temperature, how did you avoid burning up your magnets? Did you use another method of testing temperature?


I just had a "duh!" moment.

How about I stick a magnet to one side of a steel bar and see if it induces a magnetic field in the other side. Then use the induced field to test with protecting the magnet with a piece of steel.

Feedback of how you learned is welcome still.

Tie a magnet to a thin copper wire (or string) and suspend it close to the forge. Wave a piece of test metal under the magnet to see if the magnet is attracted to the ferrous metal (IRON or steel). No touching involved. The magnet should be attracted to the metal proportional to the strength of the magnet. Strong magnets have strong attraction, weak magnets have weak attraction.

LB0007 Seeing colors
Now heat the metal to low red and test the swing of the magnet, no touching allowed. If the magnet swings, heat it to medium red, high red, low orange, medium orange, etc until the magnet is no longer interested in the metal. That is the non-magnetic point your looking to achieve. Getting the metal hotter will still be non-magnetic, but at some point as the metal cools, the ferrous metal becomes magnetic again.

Normally for beginers I would recommend that they use a large magnet from say a loudspeaker or microwave unit if they want to put it into contact with the hot metal.

Yeah, you're using the wrong magnets. Ceramic, alnico and rare earth magnets aren't quite as fragile as the ones you're using. (But overheating them will rob them of their magnetism, so don't overdo it. All you need is very brief contact -- or maybe none at all in some cases.)

Harbor freight sells lifting magnets. Mine is abouit 4" long I stick it to face of anvil and let half stick off the side I bring metal up under it to test.

Use an iron horseshoe or bar magnet, it doesn't have to be fancy. I still have a couple of my old pocket magnetic probes I use. Just a quick brush is enough to tell with a bit of practice.

Frosty

I have a pile of magnets out of dead hard drives. One of them is what I've used lately. Of course then I have a heck of a time getting them out of the old pliers I use to hold them!

Kendrick

If all else fails you might try going to the local Radio Shack and purchasing a couple donut- shaped iron magnets. They are about the size of a nickel. You can loop the end of a 1/4 inch rod to the magnet. A brief touch as mentioned above will tell you whether the magnet will want to stick to the hot iron bar or not.

Glenn, I think I will try hanging the magnet from copper wire when I fire up next.

MattBower, one of those magnets *was* a rare earth magnet (the first I destroyed). Granted it stuck (obviously not non-magnetic), melted the glue it was held to the stick with, and I couldn't get it off before it disintegrated. I was left with some chrome foil and dust. It was about 3/8 inch across and 1/8 inch thick on a telescoping stick. The melty ones I rather expected to since they were flexible to start with. Those will remain on the fridge from now on.

Kendric, I might have an old hard drive laying around, or know where to find a few.

Frosty, my dad has some magnet sticks that the magnet is crimped/swaged in (he still uses them even though retired), but I seem to find only glued on magnets. Maybe I need to find a "Snap-On guy"

UnicronForge, I'll try radio shack for smaller magnets if I have poor luck with disk drive magnets. A nice doughnut might be better since voice coil magnets are rather oddly shaped.

John B and Rich Hale, If I have poor success with smaller magnets, or need to silence an anvil I will definitely give a massive magnet a try. I think my real problem lies in wanting contact. Glenn has a good point about not needing contact.

I am trying to not buy another magnet for this, but I might. I'm still a beginner with hot metal.

Thank you for the responses and ideas.

Phil

I was reading the new posts to this thread and the banner ad at the top was from Magnet4less.com. I think Google is spying on us.

The ads are topic sensitive.

Kendrick, That is too funny!

I did stop by Radio Shack and a pack of 5 ceramic doughnuts, 1 1/8 OD, were $3 plus tax.

I couldn't find the drive to take apart, and I know I had a >1GB hdd hanging out somewhere from an old computer, when 1 GB was a LOT of space.

I'm thinking I can take some cat5 apart (I have half a box) and use the copper wire to make a triangle in the corner of my forge stand to allow some swing, but keep it away from the steel.

Phil

I just use the magnet on my bottle opener....

And then I use my bottle opener....

And then....I don't know, I don't remember much after that.

:-D