Quote Originally Posted by Mark Presling View Post
Tony,
I am glad it worked for you. Mine gets a regular workout. For some reason my shed seems to have a magnetic charge. I have heard that a nearby lightning strike can magnetise large structures. We get lots of thunderstorms where we live and we had a very close strike a few years ago that killed the quartz clock mechanism in our kitchen!
Regards,
Mark Presling
Lightening can be destructive. A couple of years ago it destroyed the controller in a pellet fire heater as well as some UPS and other things. I made a new controller for the fire from an Arduino which works better than the original.
I use a some magnetic bars as tool holders and that is one reason that I sometimes need to demagnetise. When I saw your idea I knew that it would work but I was uncertain as to whether it would work well enough. It has proven itself on calipers, drill bits (I don't know how or why they get magnetised) and most screw drivers but I have one screw driver that refuses to be demagnetised. I wonder whether it is intended to be magnetised and perhaps has a magnet hidden in the handle. It is not strongly magnetised but it just will not give up what it has.