The Magnet Tray
Stores loose disc magnets in sorted stacks instead of one clinging lump.
The problem
Small disc magnets are the worst thing in a workshop drawer. They find each other, stack themselves in the wrong combinations, drag up screws and swarf, and once a few sizes have collided you cannot separate them by eye — every stack looks the same from the end. Buying five sizes and needing one of them turns into a five-minute job.
The insight
Stop fighting the fact that magnets stack, and use it. Give every diameter its own channel cut to exactly that diameter, and the magnets do the filing themselves: a stack can only sit in the channel it fits. Sorting stops being a task and becomes a consequence of the shape.
How it works
- Each channel is cut to one magnet diameter, so a disc of the wrong size will not seat in it.
- Magnets dropped into a channel snap into a single column against the ones already there.
- Channels are grouped by size across the tray, so the whole inventory reads at a glance from above.
- Open-ended channels let you slide one disc off the end with a thumb instead of prying into a pile.
- The tray is a single flat print, so it can be duplicated for a new size range rather than redesigned.
Materials and process
FDM printed in black, one piece, printed flat.
What exists now
Printed and in daily use on the bench — the photograph on this page is the working tray, not a staged one. Nine channels, filled. It has not been sold or published.
Next: Nothing planned. It solved its own problem and stopped.