MagSquares – Pub Test Winner!

Every Welder's best mate. Clingy sometimes - but only when you want them to be. 

Bad headline. Anyways...

You’ve got two bits of steel, a 90-degree corner that needs to stay a 90-degree corner, a tack to lay and only two hands.

So you do what we’ve all done. You prop it up with a G-clamp, a brick, half a pallet and a prayer, then nudge it 2 mm out of square the moment you strike an arc.

I’ve been using Magswitch MagSquares mucking around at home in the shed for a while now. They’ve quietly removed a fair chunk of the clamping faff from my day.

So into the RED SHED Pub Test they go.

What actually is a MagSquare?

A Magswitch MagSquare is a machined 90-degree workholding block with a switchable permanent magnet inside it.

Turn the knob one way, and it grips the steel.

Turn it back and the magnetic pull switches off, allowing you to move it, clean it and reposition it without wrestling a permanently live magnet across the job.

That’s the whole trick.

And it’s a very good trick.

On means on. You get magnetic grip across five faces, giving you plenty of options for holding flat plate, angle and round steel in position.

Off means off. This is the bit that separates a MagSquare from the cheap red magnetic triangles hanging in just about every hardware aisle in the country.

Traditional welding magnets are always on. They collect swarf, grinding dust and little steel offcuts like they’re building a nest.

Then you spend half your smoko picking steel splinters out of your fingers while trying to clean them.

Switch a MagSquare off and the magnetic pull releases. Most loose debris drops away, and the rest can be wiped off without the usual fight.

Onto the floor it goes, where it belongs.

Incidentally, that’s where the Magswitch Magnetic Super Sweeper earns its keep — but I digress.

What I like about them

Positioning without a fight

Because you can switch the magnet off, you can place your work exactly where you want it before locking the MagSquare into position.

You’re not dragging a live magnet across a plate and hoping it lands where you need it.

Place it. Line it up. Switch it on.

Simple.

No power, leads or batteries

A MagSquare uses a mechanical switching system. It isn’t an electromagnet.

There’s nothing to plug in, nothing to charge, no extension lead to trip over and no flat battery waiting for you at 4 am on nightshift.

Pre-tapped mounting holes

This is the sleeper feature.

The MagSquares include pre-tapped mounting points, allowing them to be incorporated into custom jigs, fixtures and repeatable fabrication setups.

Build the setup once and the magnet becomes part of the tooling, rather than another loose bit of gear you have to hunt down every time the job comes around.

They work with round steel too

The pipe notch helps the MagSquare grip both round stock and flat steel.

That sounds like a small feature until you need it.

Then it becomes very handy, very quickly.

Which MagSquare suits the job?

RED SHED stocks three of the most useful sizes in the MagSquare range.

Here’s thebreakdown.

• MagSquare 165 — SKU 8100494

The compact everyday model.

The MagSquare 165 provides a maximum breakaway force of roughly 69 kg, while remaining small enough to fit in your toolbox or welding bag.

It’s well-suited to tacking angles, holding brackets, light frame fabrication, and general workshop positioning.

For smaller fabrication jobs, this is probably the one most people will reach for first.

And yes, if you’re buying one, buying two makes a lot of sense. They work very well as a pair.

• MagSquare 400 — SKU 8100238

The workhorse.

The MagSquare 400 provides a maximum breakaway force of approximately 181 kg and reaches full magnetic saturation at around 6 mm of steel thickness.

This is where many fabrication workshops will land.

It has enough holding power for more substantial plate-and-frame work, without becoming overly heavy or awkward to move around the job.

For general fabrication, jig building and heavier workshop positioning, it’s a very useful middle ground.

• MagSquare 1000 — SKU 8100099

The big unit.

The MagSquare 1000 provides a maximum breakaway force of approximately 54 kg and weighs about 3.4 kg on its own.

It’s designed for heavier plates, beams, large fabrication setups and custom fixtures where the smaller models simply don’t have enough grunt.

This one does not muck about.

Here’s the important bit

Maximum breakaway force is the straight-pull figure.

In other words, it measures the force required to pull the magnet directly away from clean, sufficiently thick steel.

Shear force is different.

Shear is the sideways holding force you get when a load is hanging or trying to slide across the face of the magnet.

And shear force is always much lower than maximum breakaway force.

For example, the MagSquare 165 has a maximum shear figure of around 16 kg, while the MagSquare 1000 is around 67 kg.

That means these are workholding magnets, not lifting magnets.

They are designed to position and hold steel while you fabricate, align, tack or weld.

They are not designed to suspend steel over your foot, your workbench or anything else you’d prefer not to flatten.

For lifting steel, RED SHED also supplies purpose-built Magswitch lifting magnets and the MSA Pro-Lift range.

Talk to the team, and we’ll help match the lifter to the material, weight and job.

It’s also worth remembering that magnetic performance varies with the surface.

Thin steel, rust, paint, scale, dirt, air gaps and curved material can all reduce holding force.

Clean, flat steel with enough material thickness will give you the best grip.

That isn’t a Magswitch problem.

That’s just physics being physics.

The Pub Test verdict

Magnets aren’t glamorous.

Unless you're me, nobody is hanging a MagSquare poster above their bed.

But the gear that earns a RED SHED Pub Test Winner isn’t always the flashy stuff.

It’s the gear that quietly removes an annoyance from your day, every day, without demanding much attention in return.

The MagSquare does exactly that.

Setup time drops. Holding corners square gets easier. Jig building becomes simpler. Cleaning swarf off the tool is no longer a punishment.

And you’re less likely to bleed on your own equipment.

That’ll do us.

Top of the Frothies. Cheers to that.

See the Magswitch range

RED SHED is an authorised Magswitch stockist.

We carry Magswitch and MSA Magnetics products for welding, fabrication, workholding, lifting and workshop cleanup.

What isn’t already on the shelf, we can normally get moving quickly.

• Browse Magswitch at RED SHED
• Call the team for advice 1800 330 318

Buying for a business?

Apply for sharper pricing through a RED SHED VIP Company Account...

https://redshed.au/vip-company-account-application-form/

Big thanks to the crew at Magswitch for the gear and support.

See you instore or around town soon.

Cheers - Craig.