Magnetic Featherboard Help

[john lawson]

I have a great magnetic featherboard that I made from a ShopNotes plan about 3 or 4 years ago. It uses the magnetic bases that are made for a dial indicator. A friend of mine would like to make one and I cannot find the plan, I even tried searching ShopNotes and no luck. It is a PDF file.

If anyone has this plan and would share it with me I would be grateful. Please send me a PM.

thanks

john

[Jamie Buxton]

This isn't the answer you're looking for, but I just noticed that Lee Valley has these great-looking magnets to fasten fixtures to steel tables. They're kinda like those dial-indicator bases, but more directly amenable to woodworking.

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&cat=1,43455&p=56000

[Doug Shepard]

This isn't the answer you're looking for, but I just noticed that Lee Valley has these great-looking magnets to fasten fixtures to steel tables. They're kinda like those dial-indicator bases, but more directly amenable to woodworking.

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&cat=1,43455&p=56000

I've been looking at those trying to figure out if I've got a use for them or not. They look pretty slick. The only drawback is the price. Seems a bit high given LV's rep for having decent prices but I haven't tried to see if anyone else has them to compare prices.

[Hoa Dinh]

They are made by Magswitch (http://www.magswitch.com.au/), a company in Australia.

Many stores carry them: Peach Tree, Rockler, Lee Valley, Hartville Tool, ... Prices are similar anywhere you look.

[Jack Ferrell]

Hello John, Hopefully this is the one you are looking for. Magnetic Featherboards. (http://www.sfwg.org/pdf%20files/Fethrbrd.pdf)

[john lawson]

Jack:

Thanks for the link. Yes, this is the featherboard, but it's not the plan I used. I found this one earlier and it must be a scan of the earlier plan. This one is illegible when printed.

The full size plan (as I seem to recall) was 2 or 3 pages and you could read the dimensions.

john

[Steve Hayes]

Has anyone used them? If so how strong are they?

[john lawson]

I have used them and they are excellent. They are very strong and the really nice feature is being able to align them before turning on the magnets.

I bought the bases alone from Harbor Freight for about $9 each and made the rest.

john

[Jim W. White]

I'll echo John's experience. Very strong magnets and it's nice to be able to turn them on/off with a flip of a switch. If you watch the HF adds diligently you can get them REALLY cheap.

I like the looks of those newer units referenced above from LV, but OUCH, the price is just too high no matter where you try to source them from.

Jim in Idaho

[Art Davis]

Not to detrack the thread, but could anyone satisfy my curiosity by telling me how those on-off switches on the magnetic bases work? After all, you don't just switch permanent magnets off and on like you can with electromagnets!

Art

[Bill Simmeth]

Not to detrack the thread, but could anyone satisfy my curiosity by telling me how those on-off switches on the magnetic bases work?
This is an excerpt from the Lee Valley page referenced in a previous post:

These ingenious clamps each contain two powerful rare-earth magnets. With the knob turned to the "on" position, the magnets align and cling to any ferrous surface. In the "off" position, the magnets counteract each other to release the clamp for removal or repositioning. The instant on/off toggle makes them ideal for custom jigs and fixtures.

[Art Davis]

This is an excerpt from the Lee Valley page referenced in a previous post:

Bill,

Thanks. Yeah, I saw that---but it doesn't really explain things. Have you ever tried to "realign" a magnet that was close to a large piece of iron (like the table on your table saw)? It ain't that easy to do! But those things are easy to switch. (I have one on the micrometer I use to align my saw, and it works too smoothly to be "fighting" a magnetic field.)

Art