Has this every happened to you?
You
spot a piece of gold on top of some paydirt, grab your trusty tweezers,
reach
down and right before you grab it fingers of blacksand claw their way
out
of the paydirt and clog the tips of the tweezers so badly they can't
hold onto
the
gold. It falls back and buries itself in the paydirt. Can anything
be more frustrating?
What's happened is that the tweezers have gotten magnetized. Here's how to solve that problem:
Some people claim if you bang the tweezers around, the magnetic domains that are lined up to create a magnetic field get shaken up and weaken the field. I've tried it and not had much luck. Another solution that does work is to heat the tips red hot and let them cool. The thermal agitation destroys the magnetic filed. It works, but it also takes the temper out of the tweezers so the metal becomes so soft they don't hold their shape. Fortunately there is a surefire and inexpensive solution: a demagnetizer.
These are small plug-in units that can be purchased for as little as $10.00. Inside the box is a coil that produces an alternating magnetic field that shakes up the magnetic domains inside the metal so that they are no longer all pointing in the same direction. The process only takes five seconds and can be used to demagnetize anything. One improvement is to slowly pull the object upward during the last two seconds of the process. This tapers off the alternating field strength and produces a more complete demagnetization.
If you're frustrated with blacksand clogging your tweezers, give this technique a try and I'm sure you'll be happy with the results.
For a video showing the process live, please click on the following YouTube link.
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