Magnetic chip remover/wand

How many of you guys have one ?
Pickup chips then pull the handle to release all the swarf into a pail.
dd

I'm not sure what thats worth but consider a cheap magnetic base, I have a base that would hardly hold it's own weight let alone trust mounting a dial to it, but it does work well for picking up chips.:))
 
I use a small 2.5 gallon shop vac. Works great and will even suck the chips out of the small nooks and crannies.
 
funny to see this post, as i just finished making one last week. saw how to do it on the net, forgot the site though. it does fairly well, even with wet, oily chips. made from scraps i had laying around. thought i saw commercial ones for $40 or so. ill try to find the place i copied it from.
 
When you go and wave that magnet around your lathe/machine. I would be concerned about magnetizing parts of your lathe with it. And if you then magnetized your lathe, you are going to have steel chips sticking to it, making it even harder to clean! In my opinion, a bad idea. I’ll play it safe and use a brush and or vac. Besides, not everything I machine is magnetic and would not be picked up with a magnet anyway. I do not use shop air on my machines either.
 
Last edited:
When you go and wave that magnet around your lathe/machine. I would be concerned about magnetizing parts of your lathe with it. And if you then magnetized your lathe, you are going to have steel chips sticking to it, making it even harder to clean! In my opinion, a bad idea. I’ll play it safe and use a brush and or vac. Besides, not everything I machine is magnetic and would not be picked up with a magnet anyway. I do not use shop air on my machines either.

There is a knack to using it you don't contact machine parts just pick up chips...each time you rotate it with chips attached you lessen your chance of machine contact. Yes it does happen but in years no machine parts have become "magnetised"

Non magnetic machining would account for 1/2 % of all machining in a typical HB shop so I would vacuum in that case as previous poster mentioned. Which is a good idea. In my training we were not allowed to use compressed air, if you were caught you would be in some trouble !

Where it really comes in handy is when the chips are long and stringey and on the floor in hard access areas, put some gloves on and comb over the areas netting a quick catch. As you know sweeping those suckers they only get stuck in the sweeper / broom.
 
Last edited:
In reading the other thread where posters have made their own, I'm going to make a narrow version for the mills t slots.
I've been using neodium magnets for another application and think they would work well. Very strong for their size.
I buy them from Frenegy Magnets
http://www.frenergy.com.au/
dd
 
I use a shop vac for the most part cleaning off the mill and around the lathe. For reaching into corners of the floor and around the drill press, I use one of the Enco "Easy Grip" mag release pick up things and they work great. Floor to trash can - no mess.

http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INPDFF?PMPAGE=748&PMCTLG=00

If only someone could figure out how to make an aluminum magnet, they'd be rich!

:rubbinghands:
 
I would also like one made to remove the cholesterol from my beloved diner breakfast:))
 
Back
Top