Awesome Magnets

This specialized gadget from Strong Hand Tools is a welder’s best friend. It uses powerful magnets to hold two pieces of steel together at 45º or 90º angles without clamping. It provides up to 90 lb. of pulling force and is easy to remove thanks to its magnet deactivation switch.

This versatile pocket tool offers horizontal and vertical driver sockets and packs numerous bits in its magnetized body. It can also open bottles and boxes and has a built-in hex wrench and rulers. Available in a 29-in-1 version with 6mm shaft bits or a 36-in-1 version with 4mm shaft bits.

Celebrate your love for rock climbing with this set of mini magnetic holds you can stick on your fridge, filing cabinet, or side of your ride. Map out your climbing route or use it to document your adventures with photos. Includes 15 mini holds, five mini quickdraws, and three feet of skinny climbing rope.

These hook-and-loop storage straps attach to steel surfaces with an extra-strong magnet. They’re great for hanging items from tool cabinets or a pickup truck bed. But we think the best idea is to secure a metal plate to your garage or workshop wall; then, you can hang and rearrange tools and cords without drilling holes. Sold individually or in 2- and 4-packs.

Holstery’s clip-on accessory attaches to your belt or bag, providing a strong magnetic holder for tools. Its made from durable Kydex and its internal magnet is powerful enough to hold hammers, pipe wrenches, pry bars, and other steel tools. It can also hold nuts and bolts so you don’t lose them while working on a project.

The opposing forces of magnets can produce a tremendous amount of energy, and can even be used to levitate and move trains along a track. In this clip from Magnetic Games, he demonstrates these physics at work, though on a smaller scale using a bunch off-the-shelf neodymium magnets he got from Supermagnete.

You might think magnets aren’t particularly scary. But once you get a look at the attractive forces between two strong neodymium magnets, you’ll have a new respect for magnetic fields. The Slow Mo Guys show us how energetic they can be, capturing magnetic collisions at up to 187,500 FPS. You definitely wouldn’t want your hand in between those.

This fascinating tabletop showpiece features a miniature replica of our solar system. It uses magnetic levitation tech to float accurate models of each planet in orbit around the sun. The positions of each planet are synchronized in real-time using NASA data, and it’s available with a light-up sun. You can also accelerate the orbital speed for faster action.

Jarl AB’s clip-on holster provides easy access to up to 15 hex bits and packs a powerful magnet that can grab onto hardware and other metal items. A stiff pocket clip ensures it won’t pop off of your belt or tool pouch. UK-based TF Tools offers worldwide shipping.

Magnets can be quite useful, but sometimes they’re just fun to play with. Magnetic Games is back with another series of setups that demonstrate how the vibrations caused by magnetic fields can make music, and how moving one magnet can set off a chain reaction between others.

A normal bike uses a set of gears to influence the amount of torque sent to its rear wheel. Tom Stanton wanted to see if it was possible to create a bike transmission that uses magnets to turn its wheel and create resistance. Put your thinking caps on for this brainy video that incorporates physics, math, and engineering.

Derek from Veritasium visited the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory to check out the strongest magnet on Earth. With a rating of 45 Tesla, it’s 15 times more powerful than an MRI machine. Along the way, you’ll learn about the strange ways that eddy currents affect objects in such an intense magnetic field.

A modern pinball machine needs computer circuits, electromechanical components, and a power supply to work. Magnet Tricks shows how it’s possible to build a playable mini pinball machine using only magnets and pyrolytic graphite. It takes advantage of the repulsive forces between the two to bounce a washer around its playfield.

Mehdi Sadaghdar was jealous of the views of an obviously fake video showing a magnetically-powered water cannon, so he decided to try and create something real that would approximate the same effect. Naturally, his experiments involved playing with dangerous electrical currents. Get ready to lower your expectations, folks.

What’s more fun than playing with powerful neodymium magnets? Adding high voltage electricity, that’s what! Magnetic Games shows us some of the fascinating kinds of plasma arcs that form as 20,000 volts are applied to different shapes, sizes, and arrangements of magnets.

Magnetic Games teamed up with Devcafe to create this fun hybrid live-action and CGI animation starring versions of Mario, Luigi, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Yoshi made out of tiny magnetic spheres. While participating in a round of Mario Kart they are pursued by a powerful magnetic block capable of ripping them apart.

Once you knock dominoes over, you generally have to set them back up by hand. But in the case of this LEGO Technic machine by Grant Davis, the dominoes stand themselves back upright. Running in an infinite loop of 10 dominoes at a time, it can knock down and stand up dominoes at a rate of 120,000 per day.

Full Windsor, maker of the Muncher multi-utensil, makes these great slimline aluminum eating tools. This literal flatware has embedded magnets and couplers for easy stacking in your drawer or backpack or for stacking them together at the table. Perfect for camping, or carry them daily to reduce environmental waste.

We’ve seen some unique clocks and timers, but this is the first time we’ve seen one that displays time using the kind of metal filings you’d find in a Wooly Willy toy. B.B. Korry created this electromechanical clock which uses a grid of electromagnets to attract and release iron filings to count down seconds. It’s really loud, though.

Magnets have some very interesting physical properties. Magnetic Games previously showed us how they can make each other vibrate. They’re back with three more minutes of neodymium magnets interacting with each other’s fields. That separator machine that works like a paper cutter is a cool idea.

Sometimes, the best kind of lock is the kind that doesn’t look like a lock at all. B-Star Crafts shows off a simple, but effective method that keeps doors or drawers locked using hidden neodymium magnets. It’s a trick that’s frequently found in puzzle boxes but can be easily applied to furniture and cabinets as well.

Magnet Tricks created a few cool kinetic sculptures using small neodymium magnet spheres and rods. They start spinning using air blown through a straw, and some of the designs incorporate colorful rods to create a rainbow effect as they get up to speed. They look easy enough to replicate using Neobuildr parts.

Electromagnets can be very powerful. They’ve even been used to get roller coasters and trains rolling and to launch fighter jets. Tom Stanton made a miniature system of homebrew linear synchronous motors which use electromagnetism to propel a small sled and launch various items including a hot dog and a paper airplane.