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I Forge Iron

Magnets...better than expected


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I bought some magnetic strips on sale at harbor freight and finally got around to putting them up. While I have a backboard on my workbench with lots of hangers, the magnetic strips are great for oddball shaped items.

 

Anyway, the big thing to note for those who might want to try this...prepare to use 2 strips. One strip is ok for small stuff like jigsaw blades, screwdriver bits, SMALL files, etc, but my longer punches, bigger files, etc all needed 2 strips (spaced a couple inches apart). With 2 strips most of the stuff you may want to hang should hold....if you plan on magnetic strips for hammers...you might consider stacking 3-4 to get it to hold (anything over 2 lbs most likely).

 

I got the 18 inch ones for about $3-4 ea, but now all I see is 20 inch for $4.99....the right couponing may help especially with harbor freight. The only real issue I have----->not enough of the strips (7 limit forthe coupon I used). I bought a BUNCH of files about a week ago and need at least 3 more to hold them (and spread them out as I put the flat files on their sides and they dont hold as well).

 

PICTURES? sure here is an example........so if you need some storage, maybe some magnets?

 

20130128_171453.jpg

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OK idea,

    but you might want to wrap those magnets with plastic sheeting or some other way of covering them that will still allow them to attract your tools. If not they may become cover with forge scale and if you use a grinder in your shop they will deff become covered in grinding grit. The plastic can be taken off and the grit shaken away.

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Magnetizing files---double plus ungood!

 

A trick I use is to mount an old garden rake head to the wall; as I use golf balls as file handles I can then just slot them in place skipping a slot between each file so they don't touch each other.  I get the golf balls free and get the garden rake heads for a dollar or less at the fleamarket or scrapyard---buying them without a handle saves time and effort and MONEY!

 

Currently I'm using 4 of them one over each work bench and near each postvise.

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I wasnt thinking of magnetizing the files. The magnets have a tape of some kind over them and they are  a c channel. I Mostly intended to use them for punches, jigsaw blades, and randon tools that didt fit on my pegboard well, but I bought over 100 files and didnt want to just leave them in a crappy plastic tub. I plan to clean them up then maybe I can make something to put them in and use the magnets for other stuff (I have plenty of other stuff on the floor, shelves, and everywhere else).

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That's the problem with ferrous materials and magnets.  Even being in proximity to a relatively weak magnet will induce magnetic properties.  It doesn't take much attraction to get iron filings to stick to a file, and dropping the file on your concrete floor to remove the magnetism could be harmful to both parties.

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How does one go about fitting a golf ball onto the tang of a file?  Sounds really useful.

Drill a hole in the golf ball. (Stand back, as the ones with liquid centers spit blue goo.) Jam the file in tang first. The ones with formerly liquid centers don't stay on too well.

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  • 8 months later...

I first heard about using golf balls as rasp knobs while watching Gary Huston on YouTube.  I stuck one on my farrier's rasp and it worked like a charm while trimming up a horse's hooves.  You don't worry about jabbing the horse with a bare tang, you have much better control on the rasp, and it feels great in the hand.  I obtained a golf ball from my dad, who had a bunch laying around.  Told him I was stealing a golf ball.  He asked why since I don't play.  Told him I was going to use it for a rasp knob.  He had to see it for himself. 

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I use golf balls for my smaller files. But I buy rasp handles for my larger ones. The ones I get from the farrier supply have thredded steel inserts, and with a bid of oiling last indeffinantly. The ones from the welding supply just wedge on and I haven't had great luck reusing them.
Making handles is no harder than hammer handles. A salvaged shovel or sledge handle makes a good handle, but I usually use choke cherry limbs. Widdle one end down to fit a coller ( ring of copper pipe or conduit work well) drill a hole in the end under sized, cut to length and widdle and sand the back to a nice big round nobb. Drop it in a jar of turpentine or paint thinner half and half with linseed oil. Let it some a day or three, take it out and left I'd dry. The same and drive it on.

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  • 9 months later...

You can get stronger magnetic strips at hardware stores. I use one in the kitchen along with the obligatory utensil rack I just had to make myself, heehee. The hardware one ( I just checked) held a 3 lbs crosspein face on and a approx 4 lbs sledge side on. Sorry I didn't have any bigger hammers near my kitchen to try, I'm making dinner. So you can use the cheaper harbor freight one for little stuff and if you don't mind stuff becoming magnetic you can hold bigger stuff with a hardware store strip. Note they are more spendy there.

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One wonders why you have a 3 lb cross peen or a 4 lb sledge in your kitchen... I thought I was the only one using a 3 lb Estwing sledge to tenderize meat.  LOL :P

 

 

Years back I ordered some things from a local tool supplier. I figured I'd add a file handle to my shopping list since I didn't have one on any of my files at the time. When things came in, I found I didn't have one handle like I thought I'd ordered. They'd sent me a whole box of handles even though they only charged me for one handle. Counter guy said it would screw up his inventory when I pointed this out to him and said I might as well keep the extras since he was going to trash them otherwise. Man I wish that would happen more often...

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I've never seen a liquid center one either; like sodium filled engine valves they are something to be aware of; but thankfully rare.

 

They do leave interesting "swarf" though, one had pink and the other green for the last two I drilled 

I honestly thought you were at least as old as I, Thomas :D Liquid-filled, continuous rubberband wound g-balls are indeed a thing of the past. ( "If you remember these, you're as old as dirt" ) I remember cutting into one as a kid. It was fun watching the rubber band winding contract with each pass with the blade.  and since I was a kid, I was very intent on what would happen when I reached the rubber ball core. The white milky liquid must have been under quite a bit of pressure because it squirted my eye so hard I couldn't see out of it for the rest of the day and it was red for many days after. :unsure:

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  • 5 weeks later...

Interesting to read about how that goo in the golf ball hurt your eyes, Dodge. That's powerful stuff. I believe it's the heavy sap from the gutta percha tree. Those elastic-wound balls were known as gutta perchas, and they were fun to unwrap. They unwrapped themselves as you got closer to the liquid core. We have them growing in our area of Northern Australia and to cut a green tree with a chainsaw is frought with danger if the sap gets near your eyes.
Dry gutta percha is Ok though and it's a nice chocolate-coloured grainy timber, excellent for turning.

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  • 2 weeks later...

When I cut open a golf ball as a kid I managed to get down to a rubber balloon which was filled with something squishy and heavy....I seem to remember we were warned the awful consequences if we burst it, I was told it was "liquid lead". Gutta percha sounds much more likely but less thrillingly fraught with danger!

Wooden file handles were always burnt on wherever I have been. Dull Red hot, stuff it three quarters of the way in...hold your breath to avoid smoke inhalation...yank it out chuck the handle in the water bucket. When the tang is black chuck that in too. Dry them off and tap handle in to full depth.

Golf balls on the chain saw file seem almost too good to be true, consider it done. Thank you.

Alan

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I'm probably old enough---just didn't have any golfballs to play with back then; those years we didn't have any golfers around.

Now taking my mandated walk recently I stumbled over a golf ball in a rough vacant lot, then another, then another, came home with 43 of them, no course near by and by distribution it looked like someone was practicing their driving from some house across a busy road and about 40' higher. Some of them had been there long enough to get buried in the grass and dirt so they were not expecting to come collect them...now to start picking up more garden rakes...

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The least expensive file handles are less than 2 dollars for Mcmastercarr.  Its not even worth the time to use anything else.  I have at times used a short section of tree branch in a pinch.  Sometines you need to file single handed try doing that with a golf ball grip. Plus burning plastic is toxic it has no place in a blacksmith shop.  Using good tooling and proper procedure will reward you in the long run. 

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With apologies to the OP for the hijack to file handles.

 

I do agree that magnets in the workshop can be a nightmare with grinding dust around. I do have a brilliant swarf collector comprised of rare earth magnets in a stainless tube on the end of a plunger handle, looks a bit like a bicycle hand pump. There is an external rubber washer half way up the tube. You wave the thing over your swarf then holding the device over the recycle bin pull the plunger out, the swarf is dragged up the tube till it hits the rubber washer and when the plunger is fully withdrawn, the swarf falls off into the bin, much easier than a magnet in a polythene bag.

 

All my hammers, forging tools and files are on twin pronged racks which are bespoke but not dissimilar to Thomas' garden rakes… the hammer racks were modified park railing top rails.

 

To Timothy,

 

I very rarely file one handed, usually only with needle files and on those I have a few of the collet type plastic handles which afford better control. I use one of those on the chain saw file at the moment but I like the idea of the hi-vis quality of the golf ball so will try it.

 

I am a bit surprised that you are able to run a shop with no plastic in it though. Only aluminium bodied angle grinders and drills presumably pneumatic and running on natural rubber air hoses, no power cables/welding harness/gas pipes, no ear defenders, no face shields, ah the clatter of wood soled clogs…. :)

 

Though joshing aside, I quite agree with your philosophy to always buy, make and use the best tools you can.

 

Alan

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