Son was at family camp, has his big wad of keys (30 keys, only 2 magnetic key rings though?) tucked into his trunk belt at the dock as were getting into their boat.
Drops keys in the water, only about 5 ft deep but murky and the bottom is about 9″ of silt.
# of teenage boys at camp (chasing the 14 YO grand-daughter no doubt), so son offers $25, then $50 for anybody can find his keys -10 kids looking, but only a few are willing to stick their hands into the silt. How come kids so squeamish these days??
Son marked the EXACT spot on the dock where he was standing when the keys fell and knew within a foot of where they hit the water.
Next day calls wants to borrow my biggest magnet (which is a 4 pound Ne Fe B sucker. SS hols clamp around it, 8 ft of 1/4″ rope under the clamp. Drug the magnets down the entire dock, and did recover the keys, was he thrilled as there were a couple of $100 chip keys on the ring!. Also surprising was the number of slightly ferrous rocks the thing picked up. Keys were 5 ft away from where they hit the water. The magnet did NOT damage the chips inthe keys.
Put the thing in bubble wrap and big sack for DW to take to the camp, told her under no conditions let the kids get near it unwrapped , literally could break a kid’s finger if brought near even a car door. (Does not feel good on an adult either<G>)
Replies
Cool - but only you would have dangerous magnets.
Forrest
I've been reading your posts for years. I've started thinking that you're missing out on a real business opportunity.
You should start giving tours of your stash, for fees, of course, to all of us wannabes that used to think we were real pack rats. Do you realize how many men would take their wives through that just to illustrate to them how much worse things could really be at their own houses?
Thinkin' yer onto something here...
"See, Honey? After this, 5000 board feet of lumber doesn't seem so bad, does it?"
>>>Do you realize how many men would take their wives through that just to illustrate to them how much worse things could really be at their own houses?Sheesh... it works both ways. I know a few wives that would love to take their husbands through too. I think Junkhound show would have pretty much universal appeal. :)Scott.
Junk,
A story from my childhood.
When I was about 8 a friend got a brand-new watch. It was a cheap Timex or something - I don't remember. But he was really proud of that watch, telling us how it was "shock resistant" and "anti-magnetic" - it even said so on the back.
He would take it off and bang it against a baseball backstop pole at school - yep, still ticking.
Anyway, for some reason the school had this huge mounted magnet with a clamp to insert and remove a slug between the poles. We were all getting pretty tired of hearing how great the watch was, but the proud owner wanted to show us it was impervious to magnets. So he waved it close to one of the poles then put it to his ear. Yep, still ticking. So he shows us the face so we can see the sweep second hand and we all bust out laughing. The works may have been anti-magnetic, but the magnet had pulled all of the hands off and they were laying inside the crystal down near the six. The owner didn't understand why we were breaking up until he himself looked at the face of the watch, then his face turned to horror. It was great.
Jim x 3
That reminds me of the "Ted Williams tip test"...
When I was about 12 years old, I bought a new fishing rod from sears. It was endorsed by Ted Williams who was not only famous for baseball, but was also an avid fisherman. The rod was supposed to be so strong that you could hold it by the tip without breaking and there was a picture of Ted Williams doing just that. It was called the "Ted Williams tip test".
I showed my new rod to a friend who claimed his rod was just as strong and would also pass the the so-called test. So he picks up his rod by the tip and proceeds to break the tip off. Ha ha! So I pick my rod up by the tip and... guess what... I break the tip off too!!! Huh?
What neither of us realized was that you're not supposed to try the lamely-named "Ted Williams tip test" with the reel still attached.
""What neither of us realized was that you're not supposed to try the lamely-named "Ted Williams tip test" with the reel still attached."" Now that was a weighty observation.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
I got that same rod at about the same age. Kinda tan colored? Signed by Ted? I still have it. Still use it. Never tried the tip test.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
"If Brains was lard, you couldn't grease much of a pan"Jed Clampitt
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Try it tonight with the reel on.
If you break it, you can send me the pieces (G)
I don't remember the color, but yeah, signed by Ted.
And the tip test... don't do it... you might be tempted, but you must resist.
I got a 30-30 and a shotgun signed by Ted, and an older one signed by J.C. Higgens.
I thot J.C. was some old sports star till found out once upon a time he was the sears (what would be called today) CFO.
A few years ago, my BIL lost his 2 month old wedding ring 30ft from shore in 10ft of water. Bless his heart, he dove most of the day till the sun went down.
Next morning we found a small rubber blow up boat in a shed behind the mountain cottage we were staying. A few yards of twine made an anchor.
We took some coffee cups and set them in a grid on the rocky bottom to give us some kind of perspective.
Found the ring mid morning, but man, that water was cold!
Last summer, I was having our 50yr old ranch style house walls blown with fiberglass. The hole in the board above the masonry and below the birdboards needed to be 2".
The crew and young boss(I had as a student) had been using a worn hole-saw, and between the time and some smoke, they weren't making much headway. I'd found a new Milwaukee 2" forstner bit with a feed screw at the flea market for $15, so I volunteered it to speed up there work... Their 18v Dewalt drill would spin it in low gear and it was great... Some point along the way, the chuck came loose and the drill fell out and down between the studs... A replacement bit would now cost nearly $50...and both of us looked sick!!
At the same flea market, but a different month, I bought some super strong magnets a little thicker but about the same size as a domino for less than 50cents each, so I bought well over 100 of them. The vendor said the the magnets were weird because when you put them face to face and make a circle, "...they loose their power....." His demo had one magnet holding from the end of a 2ft. long screwdriver straight out. Instead of their magnetic poles being on the end, these had the poles on the face... You can put one on one side of your wrist and the other on the underside and feel their power. If you get your finger between them, expect a bloodblister...
I took some of that nylon twine Lowes uses as tie down twine and looped and tied around the middle of one magnet, then sandwiched and clamped the twine as I added another magnet. Dropping it blindly down into the hole, I heard a click. It took two tries to get the shank out the hole first, but the $50 bit came out!!!
... I bought some super strong magnets a little thicker but about the same size as a domino for less than 50cents each, so I bought well over 100 of them.
So in other words, you bought more than $50 worth of magnets to save a bit that cost nearly $50. Where was the savings? I would have punched a hole in the drywall to retrieve the bit. And fixed it with 50 cents worth of spackle.
or you could take the baseboard off and punch the hole and spend little to no time patching the hole.
So in other words, you bought more than $50 worth of magnets to save a bit that cost nearly $50. Where was the savings? I would have punched a hole in the drywall to retrieve the bit. And fixed it with 50 cents worth of spackle.
No, I already had them... If you search Ebay, you'll see that magnets that strength and size sell for good money. Using them to organize and hold sockets, woodworking hand tools and wrenches works great, too. Want to buy some? ;>)
If I hadn't bought them all at a lower price, the vendor was originally selling them for a dollar each... Plus, following the insulation job, the fascia and the board at the masonry line were wrapped with metal, forever covering the exterior... The inside drywall is in a bath and wallpapered on the top half and ceramic tile on the lower half... Without the mags, I'd just lost an expensive and barely used drill bit.
Edited 8/20/2009 1:11 pm ET by BilljustBill
My magnet story is not quite as dramatic. My kids found a cigar box full of thousands of wire brads/finish nails in great grandma's barn and as they were running down to their workbench with it, they somehow dumped the contents in a grassy patch where all the nails promptly disappeared into the grass.
They were devastated.
Great grandma also has a giant U shaped magnet that weighs around 15 lbs, not sure how much it can lift.
I took a plastic 5 gal bucket lid and held that in front of the magnet as I swept it back and forth over the grass. Within seconds all the nails were drawn out of the grass and onto the magnet/bucket lid.
We flipped it bucket lid up and pulled the magnet off and the kids were quite impressed to see all the magnets sitting in a nice pile on the bucket lid.
It seems like everyone needs at least one super powerful magnet.
Karl
Karl,
That's almost the same way I use the magnets I've collected. When adding a 12' wide storage addition to the workshop, I used 2x2 tubing, angle iron and flat stock as I welded.
The old Miller welder worked well, but welding rod stubs were everywhere, especially when welding roofing framework. They hit and bounced... At the end of the day, I would double or triple old WalMart bags and put the magnet inside. Holding on the the sack handles, I'd drag it across the concrete slab. When the 3" round speaker magnet couldn't pickup any more rods or metal splatter, I would invert the bags and pull the magnet away... Saved a bunch of time and got those unseen ones that bounced out into the grass, too.
Just have to be careful dragging it and that you don't wear a hole through the plastic bags... ;>)
Edited 8/20/2009 1:37 pm ET by BilljustBill