Lego refrigerator magnets

A few years ago a friend bought me a set of three Lego bricks with magnets in them from when she went to Legoland. You can buy a different set online at the Lego store. I received a set of Magz as a gift and I noticed that the small magnets in the bar component of the toy looked like the right size to fit in the cylinder in the bottom of Lego bricks.

Any mention of this project must provide a link to www.zieak.com with credit to Ryan McFarland.

You need:
Lego bricks
A basic set of Magz or rare earth neodymium magnets (5 mm diameter x 3 or 6 mm long)
A pair of diagonal pliers or a pocket knife or utility knife
Superglue (optional - the right size magnets will stay without it)

Step 1 Harvest the magnets

It is quite easy to remove the magnets from the Magz. Just a squeeze with the cutters and then tapping the metal onto the magnet will remove them. Please note that this is a little wasteful - if you need to buy Magz or magnets for this project just buy the magnets. They should be fairly easy to find online. They must be 5mm diameter and you can stack two 3mm magnets (the size the Mags come with) or buy 6mm magnets for the best strength. I was given the Magz and used them for a little while before deciding that I would have more fun with the magnets. I used the steel balls on top of the soil in a potted plant to keep the cats from digging the dirt up. The plastic pieces were thrown out.

Comments

[Milkdud35]

LEGO is the proper name of the company that makes the bricks.  The "pieces" are called bricks!  You should refer to them as LEGO Bricks and not LEGOS!

[KwartzKitten]

Legos is easier to remember.

[Rokko8652]

Magnetix would work too, same thing

[dawsonj]

no, they wouldn't. magnetix magnets are too big

[ralphkidsguns]

what about geomag?

[dawsonj]

dunno, maybe.

[dawsonj]

no, the magnets in magnetix are too big too

[dawsonj]

i tried this with a tiny 5.5 millimeter neodymium magnet, and i did not need to use super glue cause it was a tight fit, but did not damage the Lego. cool instructable!

[zook74]

Because you asked, Lego is always singular as it is a brand name, and is always capitalized. When referring to the plural, the "correct" term would be "Lego bricks". Kind of silly I know, but Lego and their fans are kind of fanatic about it... Cheers. Fun project.

[Schooniedude]

i made a lego magnets, but it required cutting up the insides. but, i have a lot of old magnetics and legos, and this seems soooo much easier. nice work!

[samando]

I recently went to a Star wars expo.. thing at the Powerhouse in sydney and these magnetic bricks were used to make a MagLev sumulation of a land speeder. This might be a fun project

[davis396]

hey i think im going to make a second version off this cause i tryed put tengamo magnetic pices insted of these but they kind of make cracks in the holes

[CarpetGnome]

This would be awesome if you could put the magnets inside of one of the "flats" of legos.... The full size, not skinny.... then you could build a 3d fridge sculpture out of it. Good recycling of old toys!

[wittzo]

I bet you could. You could magnetize several bricks and make sure the bricks you put on that side of the sculpture have the magnets in them so it will stick. My buddies use small rare earth magnets on their wargaming miniatures' weapons so they can swap them out easily.

[phirleh]

You might be able to buy those magnets from lee valley too if you don't want to bust up your magz http://www.leevalley.com/hardware/page.aspx?c=1&p=40076&cat=3,42363,42348&ap=1

[etsywhore]

this is a much better place to buy neo magnets http://www.kjmagnetics.com/categories.asp?PARTNER=Google&gclid=CIWrjuzPz4wCFRoDhgodKzjnqg

[Ducky Boy]

Good Luck on the Contest! Your idea has a lot of good-ness, legos are very, very cool.

[nobody6.1]

Good job Zieak! Good luck!

[ScooterSES]

To answer your question about the plural form of lego... The correct form is lego bricks or lego pieces, not legos. I used to get the lego magazine as a kid and they covered it a couple of times.

[rockyt]

Legos are the shit. I love em.

[trebuchet03]

Wow.. I didn't know that :) Thanks -- I'm sure someday that will be useful for me :D

[oddree]

I did a similar trick using highly magnetic pieces out of dead hard drives. They have those rare earth qualities in that they are SUPER magnetic. I used a tube of liquid weld to attach them to all sorts of things (including a couple Legos). It worked pretty well. ;-)

[Zujus]

I love lego! :D