Has anyone had experience with using magnets instead of pins

[svaughn]

I started using magnets instead of pins and like it. Has anyone else tried it?

I got the idea from http://www.airfieldmodels.com/information_source/how_to_articles_for_model_builders/tools/magnetic_building_board/index.htm

There is commercial product called Magna-Board too http://www.easybuiltmodels.com/b04.htm

My 'board' is a 6" x 19" sheet of steel from Lowes reinforce (and flattened) by 3/4" angle stock.

[supercruiser]

Never used a magnet board myself. Sounds interesting. I have heard one person say that the magnets are fairly strong and can crush a small part if not careful. Let us know how it works out.

[dbcisco]

I use magnets. I have a metal plate cover by a sheet of glass with the plan between. I use super strong magnets to hold the glass down and small alnico magnets to hold the parts in place. Works great. You can see it in this pic of my Guillows SE5 build.

[svaughn]

Hi supercruiser,

I've never found that one of my magnets could crush anything, but I have had magnets abruptly move toward another magnet that was positioned too close. If the magnets are large, there is enough force to break off a rib or a bulkhead. Mostly I use small ceramic magnets (1" x .25" x .25"). They are big enought to hold Peanut and Walnut scale parts, but not hard to manage.

[svaughn]

hi dbcisco,

I love the plans and I go out of my way to protect them. Your idea of putting thin glass over the plans sounds great. How thick is the glass you use?

What I have been doing, is copying the protion of the plan I need. I put the Scotch Restickable glue stick on the back of these plan fragments and it holds them to my steel plate. Then I spray one side of a piece of wax paper with some spray-on photo mounting stuff and that holds it to the plan. This is all nice and flat, but I think probably not be as flat as a piece of glass.

I tried glass with tape a while ago, but I was using the superglue a lot, and it stuck to the glass. Now I use that SigBond for most everything, but I haven't tried it to see if it sticks to glass too.

[dbcisco]

The glass is 1/8" and the dried crazy glue scrapes off pretty easily. Sometimes the parts get glued to the glass but dental floss and a slow and gentle sawing motion gets them loose.

[svaughn]

Where did you get 1/8 glass plate?

[dbcisco]

I got mine at Lowes or Home Depot, I don't recall which. Fairly inexspensive.

[SteveM]

Do you have any parallax issues when using glass over the plans?

[dbcisco]

The trick is to look straight down or straight across. Difficult to explain but once you get it set up it comes pretty easy.

[dbcisco]

I just got a piece of 24"x24" velum to use instead of the glass to try. I am going to use it for assembling the wings on to see how it compares to glass, it is almost as transparent as tracing paper but much stronger.