Metal Detector / Walking Stick

While exercising my tendency to wander as many rabbit trails as I can find, I followed one of them leading to meteorites. One of the things I learned was, people use metal detectors and magnets, among other things, to verify the possibility a particular find might be an actual meteorite. Of course, that lead me to even more rabbit trails. One was a project – designing and building a poor-man’s metal detector. This is the result.

As much as anything, it’s application is whimsical, since it will never compete with a metal detector and a [far] lessor magnet would suffice. It may even place you in the predicament of having your walking stick stuck to a manhole, which would be horrible [during a walk in the forest].

It started from a 2×4 left over from a cut for framing a closet. I designed it so it could be a walking stick and a magnet.

I buy rare earth magnets for things like tool and bit storage, so I splurged on the latest order and spent nine bucks on one about 1-1/2" in diameter, a quarter inch thick and with nearly one hundred pounds pull.

I was showing it to the wife and set it on the table saw and found it displayed itself quite well (please note – there is nothing supporting it, aside from the magnet at the point of the stick). The couple pound, cut down 2x was no match for the magnet.