Magnetic broom

[Philip Davies]

No bristles, but a series of magnets - Ferrite tori, salvaged from microwave ovens.

[mklotz]

If you're using that in a metalworking shop, you'll need a cover for the magnets so they don't get completely covered with difficult-to-remove ferrous swarf. A piece of plastic pipe slit to snap over the magnet string might do the trick. Snap it off the broom over the trash barrel and all the swarf will drop away leaving the magnets clean.

[Philip Davies]

Thanks, but it is mainly for outdoors. I have a smaller one for the workshop. I produce a lot of dirt, and drop a lot of bits, but not a lot of swarm!

[Paul Jones]

When I had my house re-roofed from sawed cedar shingles to a light-weight concrete tile (required fireproof replacement after the house next door burned down in a wildfire), the roofers used a form of magnet broom to gather up all the roofing nails from the cedar shingle tear-off operation. Removing the old cedar shingles dumped a bunch of short nails down on the patios and garden beds near the edges of the house. Similar to your broom design, their magnetic broom pick up 99.9% of the nails and worked very well. Thanks for posting and providing your source of magnets.

[Imabass]

No bristles, but a series of magnets - Ferrite tori, salvaged from microwave ovens.

If you take apart the power supplies in the microwaves, you can use the coils to make killer electromagnets. You can power them with some D batteries and they will pick up a ton of weight. Then turn off the power and all the metal falls off.


I would like to get the coils from about a dozen microwaves.

[Philip Davies]

Excellent! But I do not think that I could do that safely.
Through my work, we occasionally have microwaves donated to us, and I dismantle them for the copper,etc

[mklotz]

Some of the strongest permanent magnets ever made are found in computer hard disk drives. For your own protection, whenever you discard a computer you should first remove the hard drive, disassemble it and destroy the platters. To do this you will have to remove the magnets (along with a bonus of some high quality bearings). Be careful, they're strong enough to seriously pinch fingers.

[DIYer]

Thanks Philip! We've added your Magnetic Broom to our Miscellaneous category, as well as to your builder page: Philip Davies' Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Magnetic Broom by Philip Davies

tags: magnet, broom

[Philip Davies]

Thanks. Yes, I have some of these.

[Altair]

If you're using that in a metalworking shop, you'll need a cover for the magnets so they don't get completely covered with difficult-to-remove ferrous swarf. A piece of plastic pipe slit to snap over the magnet string might do the trick. Snap it off the broom over the trash barrel and all the swarf will drop away leaving the magnets clean.

I'm with Marv on this one. Since you are using it outdoors, a lot of dirt will also be caught along with the ferrous materials. Still, it's your call Philip. Way to make use of scrap materials.

Al