Watch this video... and tell me what the heck is going on here.

[Tom Hammond]

http://www.weykick.de/seiten/liveview.html

What kind of material is this? rubberwood? beech? Some kind of plywood I don't know about? It has to be something super smooth.

How do they get those magnet to work like that? How thin must that material be?

What kind of finish would you use to make it work that smoothly?

General comments regarding my intent to duplicate this toy for my grandkids are welcome.

[Troy Turner]

Tom -

Looks like an intersting concept and would see where your grandkids would enjoy it.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say may a prefinished cabinet grade 1/4"? That or judging by the size of the table, could be solid panel glue ups to something under 1/2". I would think anything thicker wouldn't get the reaction from the magnets.

Possibly some rare earth magnets which I've heard a pretty strong.

Looks like one of the surfaces was just painted. Both services were probably an epoxy for durability.

Course might not even be wood at all..and some other material.

Get a couple of magnets and test on some scrap and see what you come up with...

Good luck and let us know :)

[brian c miller]

I have a few small magnets that I got from work... some kind of rare earth magnet. It's strong enough to hold up recipes through my kitchen cabinets. It's actually great to be able to stick something up out of the way when cooking. They are about the size of a dime and maybe 4-5 dimes thick.

[john lampros]

looks like a masonite surface and neodymium n52 magnets to me. I do that on my 3/4 in thick marble counters to tease the cat.

[Matthew N. Masail]

Lee Valley have rare earth magnets that they rate by lifting power, it seems to me that there shouldn't be a problem to make such a toy, you'd just need to experiment with the right thickness plate to get the grip where you want to, not too strong not too weak. looks like a cool toy.

[Keith Outten]

Another option for magnets is to reclaim them from old computer hard drives. I use them on my table saw to hold various things like dust shrouds over the routers in the TS wings. They are so strong you have to slide them to the edge of the table top to remove them and they resist sliding big time. Since they are mounted to a metal bracket it would be easy to attach them to a handle, the down side is that they are not round, they have a butterfly shape normally.
.

[Derek Stockley]

That's pretty neat. I'd suggest applying something smooth to the bottom of the playing pieces like a plastic or metal furniture glide foot to keep them moving and prevent scratching up the top too much. Maybe something like that pre-finished 1/4" hard board for making marker boards for the playing surface? Cheap, smooth and easy to replace. Alternately ... 1/4" opaquely coloured acrylic sheet? Also, a couple of other posters mention the magnets from Lee Valley - they also have little steel cups that you can put the magnets in to increase their strength in a particular direction. I picked up a couple of the 1/4" and 3/8" sized ones and they're quite surprisingly strong. With the cup, I'd expect the 3/8" to be pretty strong right through 1/4" of hard board or acrylic.

[Greg Peterson]

That is a great idea. Same concept for cleaning fish tanks. Some kind of low friction material on the controller base and player piece keeps everything moving smoothly.

However they need better actors in that video. My siblings and I never cheered that way after scoring against the other. It was always personal!:D

[Jamie Schmitz]

The magnets on the bottom might need some type of roller bearing protruding from the surface to make for ease of movement. I love foos and this looks fun too. Also some UHMW tape strips over the magnet might work.

[David Cefai]

We had a toy like that about 1958. So I'd guess you don't need ultra strong magnets. If I were building that I'd go for 1/4" ply and a PU finish, wet sanded with very fine grit and then waxed.

My .02 Euros worth.

[Myk Rian]

Carom boards were made of Birch ply. I have one from 1963.
That game board looks the same. Super magnets and felt on the bottom of the pieces.
Simple.

[Rick Fisher]

I looked into Magnets for another project, you can buy them by strength although I don't think you would really need them that strong.. Also, when a magnet is backed by steel, it makes the magnet stronger.

In other words, if you put a steel disc behind the magnet, or put a weaker magnet in a steel cup, the face that is exposed and used becomes much stronger than it would be if on its own.

I think LV sells the cups too but there are companies online that have all the (Yawn) data showing the different ratings of each class of magnets they offer.

[Tom Walz]

Just bought a bunch of cheap magnets from American Science and Surplus.

Tom

[Tom Hammond]

I bought some neodymium "Super Magnets" today.

What do you think of 1/8" masonite? It's hard, smooth, durable... on the backside, too.

Felt on the contact surface... and testing with countersink depth on the magnets until the right strength is reached?