I can see the attraction
June 24, 2017 8:22 AM Subscribe
Magnet fishing is simple - get a strong magnet, an even stronger rope and a body of water. Throw in the magnet and see what you find!
It's all good fun until they hook some WW2 UXO. Given the strength of those magnets, it might remind the old waterlogged fuzes just what they were made for. They might become very Xy O indeed, making the magnet fishers decidedly ex in the process.
There is a lot of UXO in British waterways. There's a lot of pre-war iron railing remains in there too, cut off for the war effort then never used.
posted by scruss at 8:53 AM on June 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
There is a lot of UXO in British waterways. There's a lot of pre-war iron railing remains in there too, cut off for the war effort then never used.
posted by scruss at 8:53 AM on June 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
Damn, I didn't think I needed yet another hobby. Looks like tons of fun!!
posted by wats at 8:54 AM on June 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by wats at 8:54 AM on June 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
Kids, do be VERY careful with the modern neodymium high strength magnets, amazing technology, will take off a finger.
posted by sammyo at 9:07 AM on June 24, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by sammyo at 9:07 AM on June 24, 2017 [7 favorites]
Fucking magnets .... How do they work?
posted by chavenet at 10:09 AM on June 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 10:09 AM on June 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
The Dredge Report, I gauss...
posted by Devonian at 10:33 AM on June 24, 2017 [15 favorites]
posted by Devonian at 10:33 AM on June 24, 2017 [15 favorites]
I remember seeing this as a use for heavy duty magnets sold by Edmund Scientific back in the 1970's (they had the coolest catalogs!) This was before rare earth magnets were widely available to consumers, especially larger ones. So they were just really big ceramic magnets (if i remember correctly) that could lift something like 100-200 pounds. We have lots of water where I live and I have found some neat things SCUBA diving in the Savannah river; I should give this a try. I could find some UXO from the Civil War, so there is that concern.
posted by TedW at 10:39 AM on June 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by TedW at 10:39 AM on June 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
Fucking magnets .... How do they work?
The attractive always get questioned about their means of support.
posted by fairmettle at 11:29 AM on June 24, 2017 [8 favorites]
The attractive always get questioned about their means of support.
posted by fairmettle at 11:29 AM on June 24, 2017 [8 favorites]
I would be hoping to find Bender.
posted by lagomorphius at 12:12 PM on June 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by lagomorphius at 12:12 PM on June 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
I was reading about this a couple weeks back and was amused that the subreddit was full of "Uhh so I found a gun and had to call the police." Fight crime! Magnet fishing!
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 12:17 PM on June 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 12:17 PM on June 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
I wonder how much damage various forms of unexploded ordinance would do if it went kablooey under varying feet of water.
That said, this looks both fun, good for the local environment, and (if not realistically) profitable, assuming there's a local scrap yard around and the will to weigh in and cash out.
posted by RolandOfEld at 12:24 PM on June 24, 2017
That said, this looks both fun, good for the local environment, and (if not realistically) profitable, assuming there's a local scrap yard around and the will to weigh in and cash out.
posted by RolandOfEld at 12:24 PM on June 24, 2017
Maybe they can find the metal detectors all the frustrated hobbyists threw into the lake after spending hours and hours without finding anything valuable.
posted by bondcliff at 12:36 PM on June 24, 2017 [8 favorites]
posted by bondcliff at 12:36 PM on June 24, 2017 [8 favorites]
I am NEVER going magnet fishing, but I now have a new internet obsession and sub reddit to lurk on! Cool!
posted by palindromeisnotapalindrome at 1:00 PM on June 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by palindromeisnotapalindrome at 1:00 PM on June 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
I assume if you get hooked on a car or something your only recourse it to cut the rope? How often does that happen, I wonder.
My inner 12-year-old wants to do this so badly...but I suspect it would be like any other fishing, lots of excitement in the build-up and then meh on the day itself.
posted by maxwelton at 1:51 PM on June 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
My inner 12-year-old wants to do this so badly...but I suspect it would be like any other fishing, lots of excitement in the build-up and then meh on the day itself.
posted by maxwelton at 1:51 PM on June 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
and (if not realistically) profitable
The problem, as far as I can see, is that iron and steel are comparatively worthless as scrap metals. I suppose you might get lucky and find a lump of nickel or cobalt, but I'm guessing that's an event with a probability somewhere between "pull the other one" and "ain't gonna happen".
Seems like lead is still the way to go for turning a quick buck. I remember a few years ago someone stole a thick sheet of lead flashing about 2.5m by 40cm from a wall outside my old flat. I had visions of some monstrous bloke having just rolled it into an enormous lead Swiss roll and wandered off with it under his arm, and thanked my lucky stars for not having bumped into him.
While I suspect that in reality they just cut it up and slung it in a van, I prefer imagining my version of events.
posted by howfar at 3:15 PM on June 24, 2017
The problem, as far as I can see, is that iron and steel are comparatively worthless as scrap metals. I suppose you might get lucky and find a lump of nickel or cobalt, but I'm guessing that's an event with a probability somewhere between "pull the other one" and "ain't gonna happen".
Seems like lead is still the way to go for turning a quick buck. I remember a few years ago someone stole a thick sheet of lead flashing about 2.5m by 40cm from a wall outside my old flat. I had visions of some monstrous bloke having just rolled it into an enormous lead Swiss roll and wandered off with it under his arm, and thanked my lucky stars for not having bumped into him.
While I suspect that in reality they just cut it up and slung it in a van, I prefer imagining my version of events.
posted by howfar at 3:15 PM on June 24, 2017
This magnet fishing video of some bloke and his little daughter is the nicest ever. They get free ice cream at the end and the ice cream man helps them tow a tetanus-laced bit of rusty fencing out of a muddy old pond and the kid joyfully jumps up and down on the fence.
posted by liliillliil at 3:16 PM on June 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by liliillliil at 3:16 PM on June 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
Nice find! This is actually pretty cool: exploring new places, helping the environment, finding things from the past, a sense of mystery, and helping the environment, thanks for sharing! I never thought about this being a hobby but I imagine that this could become quite popular.
posted by fizzix at 3:35 PM on June 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
BRB pitching my new program, Magneticists, to the BBC.
posted by soren_lorensen at 3:52 PM on June 24, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by soren_lorensen at 3:52 PM on June 24, 2017 [5 favorites]
They say "like and subscribe" so casually, like it was their newest pub greeting.
posted by JHarris at 4:35 PM on June 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 4:35 PM on June 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
My dad used to do this (he also metal-detected for a while - I believe these are on the same general hobby vector). I wonder whatever happened to his giant magnet?
posted by Miko at 5:51 PM on June 24, 2017
posted by Miko at 5:51 PM on June 24, 2017
Also, props for the thread title.
posted by Miko at 5:53 PM on June 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Miko at 5:53 PM on June 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
TedW: I could find some UXO from the Civil War, so there is that concern.
That's the least of the things you could find in the Savannah River...
That said, when I hauled my usual pile of metal scraps to the recyclers this weekend, steel was going for a princely $.03 a lb. so you're not going to get rich with this hobby, but I've spent my time losing money and not being as entertained...
This also reminds me of the time I dropped a particularly important motorcycle part (loose clutch bearing) into the sand floor of my shed, and all the amazing* things I discovered while combing thru the floor with a strong magnet from Harbor Freight.
*Nails mostly, a few ball bearings, and other odd things too including a tetanus shot the next day because I was paranoid and I was due anyway. But I did find the clutch bearing, so: win!
posted by 1f2frfbf at 7:28 PM on June 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
That's the least of the things you could find in the Savannah River...
That said, when I hauled my usual pile of metal scraps to the recyclers this weekend, steel was going for a princely $.03 a lb. so you're not going to get rich with this hobby, but I've spent my time losing money and not being as entertained...
This also reminds me of the time I dropped a particularly important motorcycle part (loose clutch bearing) into the sand floor of my shed, and all the amazing* things I discovered while combing thru the floor with a strong magnet from Harbor Freight.
*Nails mostly, a few ball bearings, and other odd things too including a tetanus shot the next day because I was paranoid and I was due anyway. But I did find the clutch bearing, so: win!
posted by 1f2frfbf at 7:28 PM on June 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
This looks like good upper body strength exercise as well. I started watching the one that seemed to promise finding a gun, bullets (nope) but it was 45 minutes of watching a guy slinging a mucky line into a canal and 30 minutes of him saying just a couple more throws and now I feel like I've spent a pleasant afternoon in the English countryside. It's quite relaxing.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:36 AM on June 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:36 AM on June 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
We have a lot of little rivers and streams around here, but also an enormous land grant university. I'm thinking we'd find a lot of bicycles, and it would be no good at all because there is already an inundation of abandoned bicycles at the end of every academic year.
It does seem like a lot of fun, though.
posted by Orlop at 10:00 AM on June 25, 2017
It does seem like a lot of fun, though.
posted by Orlop at 10:00 AM on June 25, 2017
Afterwards, they're hauling this stuff off to an appropriate trash/recycling facility, right?
posted by Gable Oak at 1:35 PM on June 25, 2017
posted by Gable Oak at 1:35 PM on June 25, 2017
I grew up in a place that had a stream at the bottom of the garden, where I spent many happy childhood afternoons building dams, catching elvers in jamjars, exploring strange new liverworts and all that sort of thing. At one point, I was given a very cheap metal detector and went prospecting. I found a large, corroded lump of metal in the stream that had a vaguely spiral shape, pulled it out onto the bank and trotted back up to the house to describe my discovery.
My father said that it sounded like some kind of synchromesh gearbox, so I trotted back down with a spade and the intention of bashing off enough of the corroded surroundings to work out exactly what I had. After some spirited hacking away, I really wasn't sure it was a gearbox. I went back up and persuaded my father to come and see for himself.
He trudged down, looked at the lump and made a funny sort of noise, then suggested we both return to the house. On the way, he said that while it was still a bit of a corroded mess he did recognise it from his time in the army, as a bandoleer of .303 machine gun ammunition. Might have been dropped on a training exercise by squaddies who didn't fancy carrying it back to barracks, he suggested. (In retrospect, I doubt that, but we were on the edge of a big naval city that had seen a lot of attention by the Luftwaffe during the war, so who knows what went on back then.)
Phone calls were made, the police turned up, and a rather nervous WPC made some calls on her walkie-talkie - "Sarge, what did you say about rusty ammo?" - then gingerly wrapped the find in a blanket and put it in a cardboard box in the back of her car. I did ask whether I might get it back, but was assured that this wasn't going to happen.
This wasn't the only astonishingly dangerous thing to happen in that garden involving my father and his risk assessment skills (it was a large garden, and could support some large bonfires, and both he and I were, shall we say, experimentally-minded. Also, he borrowed a flame-thrower one summer), but it does stick in the memory for some reason.
posted by Devonian at 7:22 PM on June 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
My father said that it sounded like some kind of synchromesh gearbox, so I trotted back down with a spade and the intention of bashing off enough of the corroded surroundings to work out exactly what I had. After some spirited hacking away, I really wasn't sure it was a gearbox. I went back up and persuaded my father to come and see for himself.
He trudged down, looked at the lump and made a funny sort of noise, then suggested we both return to the house. On the way, he said that while it was still a bit of a corroded mess he did recognise it from his time in the army, as a bandoleer of .303 machine gun ammunition. Might have been dropped on a training exercise by squaddies who didn't fancy carrying it back to barracks, he suggested. (In retrospect, I doubt that, but we were on the edge of a big naval city that had seen a lot of attention by the Luftwaffe during the war, so who knows what went on back then.)
Phone calls were made, the police turned up, and a rather nervous WPC made some calls on her walkie-talkie - "Sarge, what did you say about rusty ammo?" - then gingerly wrapped the find in a blanket and put it in a cardboard box in the back of her car. I did ask whether I might get it back, but was assured that this wasn't going to happen.
This wasn't the only astonishingly dangerous thing to happen in that garden involving my father and his risk assessment skills (it was a large garden, and could support some large bonfires, and both he and I were, shall we say, experimentally-minded. Also, he borrowed a flame-thrower one summer), but it does stick in the memory for some reason.
posted by Devonian at 7:22 PM on June 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
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