Fridge magnets in Medium Maply Ply

Beyond the Manual
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A friend of mine owns a spa and I help her out with signage and things. We’re looking at fridge magnets as promo giveaways, and these are the drafts. The round ones are 2" across. (I’m not redacting the info… Call if you want to book a massage!)

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To create these designs, I developed a couple of manual engrave settings. I wanted 2 discernible shades with a tiny bit of depth, but I didn’t want to carve any deeper than I had to because I was going to carve out a pocket on the back for the magnet.

The dangly design uses some split rings from an assortment at Michael’s. It looks nice but I don’t think I want to make 50 of them!

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The Proofgrade HD Engrave uses power 16, speed 300, and it does produce a third discernible darker shade, but at the cost of a deeper carve.

For the magnets, I looked for the best combination I could find of thin, wide, strong, and cheap. These are 2mm thick, 15mm across, and cost $5 for 50. The finish is adequate and mine don’t have an obvious chips or dust. I’d buy them again.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07569H2JW

To seat the magnet I figured out another manual carve that made a pocket just deep enough for the magnet and a little glue. (It’s a good idea to sand the char out of the pocket before securing the magnet.)

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The pocket is a little bigger than the magnet so glue can smoosh around the edges of the magnet without running out of the pocket–still, you only need a little bit. Also, since these magnets are metal, they may scratch your nice stainless appliances, so the seated magnet is JUST below the wood surface. I got some adhesive craft felt for the back, but it looks like I won’t need it.

To secure the magnets, I first tried hot glue and it did not work at all. The magnets are too slippery for hot glue to grip. Then I tried my handy bottle of Gorilla wood glue, and that did the trick. I read in Amazon reviews that E6000 adhesive will also work, but have not tried it.

That’s enough for one day!

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Thank you for sharing your work with the group. I hope your friend uses the spa to keep you relaxed as you use your talents to promote the spa.

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Very nice, thanks for sharing your settings!

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Yep! Very nice! :grinning:

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An awesome write-up! Your magnets look great!

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Nice job! I really appreciate how you shared your settings and the details on assembly, so that myself and others can learn from your experience.

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Thanks for the settings.
If you want to cover the magnets check out the high friction disks here:
http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=32066&cat=1,42363,42348

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Adhering magnets is the trick. As these are promotional longevity probably isn’t a giant concern. On our products we place them in a pocket and then use a layer of material over the top. The peel-n-stick veneer would probably work well, but cost.

Of far more pressing concern is do you know they build refrigerators these days without ferrous-metal doors? How sick is that?

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Our stainless steel appliances have doors that are non-magnetic. The sides still are okay but can’t use magnetic mounts on the fridge front anymore :slight_smile:

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Nice work!
I did 100 ‘save the date’ announcements in medium cherry ply where the magnet pocket is slightly smaller and pressed them in.
A big benefit of having a cutting tool you can graduate by thousandths! :sunglasses:

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People like stainless steel. But most stainless steel formulations aren’t magnetic.

Solution: buy a white fridge.

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Or place a piece of sheet metal under the thin layer of stainless steel.

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or just don’t put magnets on the front? :slight_smile:

doesn’t really bother me. but i know others love to use fridges for posting stuff. it’s nostalgic.

only SS place i miss it is the dishwashers at work. we need one of those magnetic “dirty/clean” magnets on them.

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The dishwasher at my parents house has no magnet joy and it isn’t even stainless steel. Their dirty/clean magnet is stuck on the fridge.

IDK, maybe they’re holding out hope it will break and they just really like that magnet.

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I’ve had good luck using 5 minute epoxy to glue in the magnets. I never liked the amber squeeze out you get with gorilla glue.

Also, if you have access to old computer hard drives like I do, you can extract some really beefy rare earth magnets out of those and use them for heavier projects. :grinning:

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The Gorilla wood glue doesn’t do that foaming thing like regular Gorilla Glue.

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I made one for our work dishwasher using velcro to attach laminated “dirty” or “running” tags.

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Very nice designs and write up!

Since we aren’t supposed to discuss settings in this section, I’m going to move it to #beyond-the-manual.

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Anyone know what those settings would be (approximately) on a Plus?

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Settings are the same for all models except for FULL on the Pro.