Cleaning rare earth magnets?

[Brian Ashton]

Most of us have got a few kicking around... How do you clean off all the ferrous metal fragments that accumulate on them.

[glenn bradley]

Wiping with a dry rag. T-shirt material seems to catch most things you can see. Coarser fabric for coarser spoil. For prevention of contamination I keep them in old pill bottles with a bit of material caught between.

[Steve Friedman]

Compressed air and rubbing with fingers simultaneously. Without the compressed air, the fragments never leave.

It's been many years since my last physics class, but I also wondered if there was a way to temporarily counteract the magnetic force with another magnet to make the fragments fall off.

Steve

[Ken Shoemaker]

Duct Tape........... Press on, Pull off

[glenn bradley]

I like Ken's answer.

[J.R. Rutter]

Oxidize them? Duct tape is faster though.

[Van Huskey]

I like Ken's answer also. I have to admit I have this same issue drive me nuts and I wasn't bright enough to think of duct tape. :o

[Jerome Hanby]

You could heat the magnets with a torch. That should make them let go of the fragments...of course they won't be magnets (at least not very good magnets) anymore <g>.

[Gordon Niessen]

Though this will not help if you already have gotten crud on your magnets: If you are using a magnet to pickup small metal particles you can first put it in a small ziplock freezer bag and then use it for picking up the small metal. Then just pull the magnet out and the particles will drop off the plastic. Bag and magnet are clean to use again.

[Carl Beckett]

I handle rare earth magnets a lot at work, including grinding and shaping, etc.

Tape is the clear choice.

Duct tape, masking tape, carpet tape. Anything sticky

Air, wiping, washing, etc.... just doesnt pull off the small particles.

Also, if I have a small square magnet I like - I usually wrap them with a layer of masking or packing tape. It makes the surface just a little less prone to chipping and a little softer when they smack down against metal