Small magnetic squares??

Harbor Freight sells them cheap -- a couple of bucks IIRC. They are just a tad weaker than the more expensive ones you can buy from Linde or Praxair, but not enough to complain about. All in all the HF mags are a good buy IMO.

Karin Conover-Lewis klclewis at hotmail dot com

A rather embarrassing (to me) side note regarding magnets. I was trying to tig some aluminum the other day..and the arc was a waterfall when I reached a certain section of metal. Big mushroom of arc and plasma.

It was driving me crazy until I moved the work piece and realized I was using one of those magnets under the work as a standoff. I hit the area over the magnet and it was like futuristic art.

Sigh..so much to learn, so much to stub my toe on.

Gunner

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke

So the arc is very strongly affected by magnetism? I guess that makes sense. I should try that sometime :)

Strongly is not a word emphatic enough

Gunner

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke

A magnet is composed of magnetic field lines and stuff. A current is composed of electro-magnetic field lines and stuff.

You know what happens when a magnet gets near another, - it rotates, flips, .... etc. So magnetic fields and electronic or electric fields do the same.

Ever see welding wires jump or wiggle in the sand ? - same stuff. They are interacting with each other.

Martin [ still learning and re-learning ]

I've done that one. I thought those magnetic welders clamps looked like a good idea... Yeah maybe for Oxy fuel welding. It was pretty impressive how little magnet had such a big effect on GTAW plasma.

I rarely make the same mistake twice, but the supply of new ones doesn't seem to be running out either.

Bob