I suspect that one of the best tapes to use for wrapping magnets is Gaffer’s Tape (~$15/roll). It is a fabric tape that has a little give to it, so it will have a bit more friction, and the honeycomb should kind of bite into it.
I haven’t tried it yet. I’ve received, but haven’t opened the packaging on, a dozen Neodymium magnets.
Gaffer’s tape is even more expensive than Gorilla tape, but it is awesome. It will also pull off of painted surfaces without damage–which is why we use it so much for taping down cables across floors and other places when doing sound gigs. But while it pulls off of surfaces cleanly, the glue side sticks to itself tenaciously–which for creating tails for handles is exactly what you want.
For 0.25" corrugated cardboard I find 90 power & 210 speed leaves the edges clean, but you have to punch out the cardboard (it’s still a little perforated.) For a cleaner cut, but some soot on the edges I use 90 power and 180 or 190 speed. The only time I’ve experienced a flare up is the first day when I used engrave settings and had a bunch of engrave lines next to each other.
My settings for .167" corrugated paper cardboard is 300 speed/Full power. It doesn’t flare up, but the edges are a little blackened. One test run gave me the perforated version that @caribis2 gets with less charring but I wanted it to punch through.
The masking tape I was using worked for a while, but duct tape is forever.
I pulled some magnets out of a terabyte drive, and they are the strongest I have out of all the neyodimiumium.
So I had some neo magnets with duct tape handles that worked great. But when I picked them up and re-stacked them I found not knowing the north vs south pole made for some harrowing magnet slapping. So I pulled off the original duct tape and made new handles that are different colors on each side. Now I can better handle these strong magnets.
So there are lots of neodymium magnets listed for sale. Any particular ones y’all are fond of? I have a couple of hard drive rescued ones, but am looking to purchase some more.
I fill my magnet lust at https://www.kjmagnetics.com/. They have every size and shape you can think of. Tip: go to the Surplus section to find some deals.
If you’re handy and have an old hard drive, there’s a sweet one inside it.
I used to teach a course for non-engineering majors called Creative Mechatronics. The first weeks we would just take stuff apart. We called it a take-a-part-y. Those magnets were some of the prizes.
What I have been using (seen above) are 3/4" x 1/8" disks with countersunk holes, because I had them around. Those are listed as N42 on their site so I guess that is a good grade for our needs. What I have found is that you will want to stack magnets to make them stronger. One disc is fine for paper, but a stack of two will be needed for acrylic and 3 to pull down a bent piece of plywood. The thing to be concerned by is the height of the stacked magnets.
So if I were buying magnets for a laser I would choose slightly wider and thinner magnets. It would allow you to dial in the pull strength. One magnet, good for thin stuff and be easy to handle by itself. But a stack of them would get strong enough to pull down warped wood and not stack too high.
Whatever magnet you use, put a layer of duct or, ideally, gaffer’s tape on it.
This will protect both what you’re holding down and, especially if using ceramic magnets (cheap as dirt at your local hardware store-- cheaper still on Amazon), will hold all the little bits together if the magnet breaks for any reason.
Mine just came in, I put different color duct tape on top and bottoms, and they are now stuck together LOL. Thinking those flat keycards would be good between them too.
yes , magnet slapping is a thing. One step down from pistol whipping.
