Thin material has high magnetic attraction

Anchor Magnets has just launched a magnetic product, Mag-Edge(TM), which yields a formidable magnetic strength from an unusually thin and narrow piece of co-extruded material.

From its manufacturing complex in Sheffield's Don Valley steelmaking district, Anchor Magnets Ltd, UK subsidiary of Kane Magnetics International, has just launched a magnetic product to be trademarked as Mag-Edge(TM), an invention claimed as a World first.

It yields a formidable magnetic strength from an unusually thin and narrow piece of co-extruded material, down to 0.7mm thick and 7.0mm wide, about one-fifth of the volume of a conventional extruded ferrite magnet.

Given that Mag-Edge is designed to work on its edge - rather than on its face as a ferrite magnet extrusion usually does - the magnetic material used in Mag-Edge produces more than five times the energy level in MGOe units (which are mega, or million, Gauss-Oersteds) for the same contact area.

Mag-Edge combines a rare earth - neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) compound (powder and binder) with a coloured plastic edge strip by co-extruding the materials through a common die.

Magnetisation follows as the next process in line: the plastic edging is coloured to identify the different polarity of co-acting strips, conventionally red for North and blue for South.

A further in-line operation allows the co-extrusion to be branded with a name or logo through quick-dry inkjet printing.

Mag-Edge is backed on one face with a pressure-sensitive, acrylic adhesive to secure it to the edge of the surfaces due to be bonded.

By applying a red strip to one edge and blue strip to the other and butting them up edge-to-edge, a powerful joint is created.

As well as this use of magnet-to-magnet material, Mag-Edge offers a magnet-to-ferrous application, whereby either colour of material will attach securely by its edge alone to a ferrous surface.

The new product is extremely versatile, offering a host of features to benefit the advertiser, subcontractor and user.

It is more flexible and resilient than extruded ferrite, allowing posters and display panels to be rolled up tightly for carrying.

Being frameless, it is a fraction of the weight and cost of traditional ferrite, too, for pop-up displays.

It is quick and easy to fit and to change around or replace.

Lending itself particularly to products for which portability, flexibility and frequent reinstallation are important factors, Mag-Edge is fully tailorable to the application.

Typical uses will include :- * workpiece positioning and alignment, without surface damage through clamping; * automated assembly processes; * component identification / numbering; * stitching together multiple AO engineering drawings; * slats of industrial curtain doors and of window blinds; * Health and Safety announcements; * factory and warehouse notices to employees and visitors; * and instructions on the use of machinery.

Founded in September 1984, British company Anchor Magnets is one of Europe's largest and best known manufacturers of magnetic extrusion and flexible magnetic sheet products, serving over a thousand customers in the signage and display industries.

For wider uses throughout engineering, transportation, office and home, Anchor Magnets also produces standard and bespoke magnets of all sizes as well as injection moulded plastic enclosures into which dipole or multipole magnets fit.

Since March 1998, Anchor Magnets has been a subsidiary of Kane Magnetics International, Inc (KMI).

KMI is a magnetic component and assembly producer with markets worldwide, generating an annual turnover of US$54m and having traded for almost 45 years.

The company provides magnetic solutions to manufacturers of motors, sensors, gauges, meters, timers, materials separation and holding magnet systems for many hundreds of applications worldwide.

As an example, Kane produces annually more than 20,000,000 brushed and brushless DC and stepper motor magnets.

Typical end uses for KMI magnets range from assembly automation, automotive engineering, disk drives, domestic appliances, power tools, tooling, display and signage through to the materials handling, medical equipment, retail security, sports, leisure, toy and telecomms industries.

Kane's best-known products include flexible magnetic sheet; ferrite magnets - sintered, extruded or injection-moulded; rare earth magnets - extruded, injection-moulded or compression-moulded; and value-added, full-function magnetic assemblies.

By April 1997, Kane Magnetics International had superseded the original name of the company, Stackpole Magnet Division, a sintered ferrite magnets pioneer and the biggest employer in Kane, Pennsylvania.

Stackpole produced, for example, the first permanent magnet ever used in a car, and three-quarters of KMI's US production by value still goes into automotive applications.

Nowadays KMI employs in total over 600 staff at Kane, another plant in the same State at Galeton and its subsidiaries in the UK and France.

Having been the World's first magnet supplier certified to QS.9000, in recognition of the rigorous quality systems implemented at its factories in Pennsylvania, it operates cellular manufacturing and assembly there for a number of high-volume items.

In the USA the company makes more than 100 million magnets a year, processes 20 million pounds weight of magnetic powder a year and has recently invested more than $8 million in state-of-the-art manufacturing, process control and test equipment.

KMI's ferrite raw material is extracted from dross, a by-product of the steel rolling process in the famous mills nearby at Pittsburgh, centre of the richest US coalfield.

Back to top