I hate digging into a bucket of drywall screws and removing a handful with a few extra screws hanging off of my hands that have poked into my skin, or worse, gotten between skin and fingernail. (OK, OK, that’s what gloves are for, but they slow me down.)
Yesterday I grabbed the bucket and saw, on a nearby shelf, a small audio speaker that I had removed from its cabinet. Inspiration struck, and I plunged the speaker into the open screw bucket. It emerged with twenty or so screws stuck to the magnet on the back. I carried the screw-encrusted magnet over to the bench and picked off screws as I needed them–it was almost as if someone was handing them to me.
I don’t think you would necessarily need a speaker for this job, but the non-magnetized speaker basket does a nice job of keeping the magnet up off the bench. Maybe I’ll glue a little dish onto the front surface of the speaker to catch the screws that happen to fall off the magnet.
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Good idea. You might want to find a heavy duty plastic zip bag to keep it in. It'll work with the bag on it, and after a while when it picks up a bunch of magnetic crud, like from sawzalling thru steel, carefully removing it from the bag will let you easily get rid of the particles.
-- J.S.