: John

: You must have really heated those magnets to lose their magnet properties.
: Most iron bearing minerals and mixtures have some level of manetism
: present, heating them to a specific temerature (dependent on the solid
: mixture) causes the loss of the magnetic properties, that specific
: temperature is the mixtures Curie temperature. My chemistry focus was
: different avenue so that's just about all I know about that. What kind of
: magnets were they (meaning the alloy mix, forinstance, AlNiCo5, etc).
: Curious minds want to know. Seems like all magnets rust in heartbeats, too.
: Did you try that on one?

i don't think they got that hot, but i wasn't about to touch them right away. they did cool down quicker than the soldering iron. they were the rare earth (sounds like a far away planet) kind from lee valley that rob macks suggests.
the difference in strength was noticeable. didn't try the rust thing. my engineering though has gotten quite rusty.
john tmc