Making & Repairing Fridge Magnets

1. Gather materials needed to make or repair refrigerator magnets

Materials:

1. Items and decorations to turn into magnets: Gather up your broken or weak fridge magnets to repair, rock and minerals, souvenirs and other decorations to make into fridge magnets.

   

2. Adhesive: Prepare enough adhesive to attach all magnets to decorations. We used Gorilla Glue 5 minute epoxy in this article. Make sure the adhesive will bond to the materials and nickel finish on magnet. See our Gluing Magnets article for help choosing a glue. One type of glue may not work well on all surface types so be sure to check the above article and read product labels.

   Our adhesive magnets and adhesive backings are also a great way to save the time and hassle of gluing magnets, but are not great on all surfaces and may not be the best choice for surfaces like the rocks and minerals we made below and some plastics.

   

   

3. Anti-slip pads: Prepare traction pads to help prevent slipping down the fridge. For heavier decorations like some of the rocks we did, our magnet adhesive traction pads help to increase friction and prevent sliding down the fridge surface.

   The traction pads add a gap between the magnet and fridge so are best suited for decorations that will only hold thin and light objects, or just hold the decoration itself.

   

4. Magnets: While you could use any magnets, neodymium are best because of their compact size, low prices and because they don't lose their magnetization over time like ceramic and flexible fridge magnets. We are going to use disc magnets in this DIY in order to keep the decorations as close to the fridge surface as possible to lower leverage.

   If the decoration is thin and a strong magnet is used, it may be too hard to remove or the magnet may stick to the fridge and the decoration break off. Make sure the magnets are strong enough to hold up the decoration and your photos or shopping list, but not so strong you cannot remove it or the glue bond breaks. Our Rocks and Minerals article may be useful in choosing a good strength of disc magnet for your fridge.

   Our family lost a loved magnet from a past vacation when it got bumped and fell to the floor, cracking in half. If the magnets were neodymium, it would probably still be on the fridge in one piece!

   

2. Steps to create or restore fridge magnets

1. Choose location to attach magnets

Make flush with surface

Make sure the angle is flush with both the object or decoration and will be flush with the fridge surface before and after gluing. Any angle may create leverage or a gap between the magnet and fridge.

Reduce leverage

Make sure leverage is minimized to prevent magnet from falling off fridge.

Placing multiple magnets helps to reduce leverage, but if you are only able to attach one, try to make sure it is in the center of gravity. Check out our Leverage & Friction When Using Magnets article to learn more.

You can see that the location of the magnet below is not ideal because the head will be pushing against the fridge and will be trying to knock the magnet off. The green arrows in the picture show suggestions of a better way to position some magnets to prevent this issue.

In the second example, the gluing is fine, but there is only one magnet for a rock sticking out far. The magnet is strong and can hold many sheets of paper, but may easily fall off if bumped due to high leverage. While not all objects allow for multiple magnets, adding more can help prevent the magnet from falling off the fridge.

2. Clean the surfaces for better adhesive bonding

As stated in our How to Glue Neodymium Magnets article, one of the most important if not the most vital step of using adhesive magnets is cleaning and preparing the surfaces prior to application. This helps to remove dust, grease and other things that may lower bond strength. We used a damp paper towel and wiped the back of the decorations clean before applying any glue.

If you are fixing old fridge magnets that no longer stick, try to remove the old magnets and as much of the old glue as possible to provide a nice flat surface to attach the new neodymium magnets to. Glue is more forgiving of a bumpy surface and the liquid glue will fill in the holes.

One of the magnets we will be repairing was not glued properly, or did not have enough glue and thus the magnet fell out. Luckily, the decoration part was not damaged. Be sure to scratch the surface of the magnet that will be glued and use enough glue to cover the entire surface area to get as much bonding as possible.

3. Use the correct glue

Make sure that you prepare a glue that is designed to bond to the surfaces of your decoration and magnet or you may have little to no bond strength. Our Magnet Gluing article provides some suggestions, but there are too many types to cover and a little research can go a long way.

If you use epoxy, be sure to read instructions and thoroughly mix before use. We used equal volumes of Gorilla Glue on a plastic sheet and mixed with a paperclip. We then used the same paperclip to apply the adhesive to the back of the magnets.

3. Remagnetizing fridge magnets

In this article we focus on making new fridge magnets and repairing broken ones, but sometimes all you need is to remagnetize it. If you need to remagnetize an old fridge magnet, check out our previous articles:

1. Remagnetizing Ceramic Magnets
2. Remagnetizing Flexible Magnets

4. Before and after pictures of new and restored fridge magnets

Below are all of the magnets we repaired and created while working on this article. Each magnet has the reason we chose to fix it as well as the before and after pictures you can reveal by moving the slider.

1. Ramen bowl magnet - This magnet had too little glue on the magnet and just placing and moving the magnet on the fridge caused the magnet to fall out.

   We replaced this one with a D82 disc magnet and Gorilla Glue. We tried to use our adhesive magnets, but the plastic surface was too smooth and there was a bump in the center preventing good adhesion.

   

   

2. Frog and ship magnets - These were hand made woven crafts using flexible magnets. Over the years, the magnets have lost their magnetization and become too weak to hold even a single picture up.

   In order to give enough leverage and allow the magnet to stick to the fridge without blocking entire photo etc., we used two D81 disc magnets on each of these with Gorilla Glue.

   

   

   

   

3. Snowman magnet - Another handmade craft magnet. Here the ceramic magnet still seems to have decent pull force, but the placement of the magnet causes the snowman to push itself off the fridge.

   This one we also glued on a single D81 disc magnet. The magnet is in the same location since we wanted to keep the snowman looking forward and not down. The neodymium magnet is strong enough to overcome the head pushing into the fridge and hold up many sheets.

   

   

4. Pennstate lion magnet - This magnet is slightly bent and has lost strength over time. It cannot hold up even a single piece of paper.

   We glued 2 D81 disc magnets right on the back of the flexible magnet. It is now very strong and can easily hold one or multiple things on the fridge.

   

   

5. Shore decorative magnet - This magnet has great positioning, but the ceramic magnet no longer holds anything up.

   The ceramic magnet on the back was bonded so well we were afraid of breaking the decoration when removing so we glued a DX01 disc magnet to the ceramic magnet instead.

   

   

6. Thermometer magnet - This worked great for a couple of years, but got bumped and fell a few times. After multiple falls, it got partially demagnetized and kept sliding down, not even able to hold itself up.

   I sandwiched a plastic neodymium magnet I had lying around between the ceramic magnet and steel beam it was hanging on and problem solved! The plastic coated magnet was the perfect size for the steel beam and prevents scratches on the black finish.

   

   

7. Rock and mineral magnets - These are the perfect way to take your rock, mineral, fossil or other collection and show it off on your refrigerator!

   We glued neodymium magnets to the back based on the size and weight of rock. We attached a bumper pad to one of the larger rocks and it has much higher sliding resistance.

   

   

Showcase of finished custom fridge magnets

We tested the strength of our fridge magnets and the shore decorative magnet was easily able to hold 10 sheets of paper without slipping down in the slightest.

Here is a shot of all of the custom fridge magnets we created and repaired in this article, plus some of our thumbtack fridge magnets, plastic magnets and magnet fidget toys.