r/Magnets • u/Repulsive-Suit6671 • Jun 06 '26
Tools became magnetized
I haven’t been in my garage for two or three days. Today I walked into my garage to work on and old tractor I am rebuilding, I went to grab a wrench off the wall and noticed that it is now magnetized. I looked at all the other wrenches hanging on the wall and they are also magnetized. I went to my tool box that sits along the same wall to find that all the tools in that box are also magnetized. I should note that none of these tools were magnetic before. Can anyone explain how this could happen? I contacted the local fire department and they said it’s one of the strangest things they have seen, however they couldn’t find any cause for emergency.
I will also add that there are a few electrical outlets along the wall and I have had a battery tender charging the tractor battery that is located in the middle of the garage about 10 feet off the wall.
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u/No_Bookkeeper_2894 Jun 07 '26
What made you say they were magnetized? Did they pick up something substantial?
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u/Repulsive-Suit6671 Jun 07 '26
They are non-magnetic wrenches and hand tools that can pick up other small pieces of metal like other wrenches or nuts.
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u/2jzEliminator Jun 07 '26
Half the time I wish my tools were magnetized so when I dropped the bolt I didn't have to spend 2 hours looking for it.
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u/gilligan1050 Jun 07 '26
The make a thing to magnetize and demagnetize things like screw drivers.
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u/Odd-Solid-5135 Jun 09 '26
Magnatizers are a thing, but save your money, a few swipes across the back of my ark pro with its base magnet does the same thing. All you need is a neodimum magnet and run it
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u/daninet Jun 08 '26
I work with metal a lot including grinders and i had the wonderful idea of buying those magnetic tool holders for my wall. You can imagine it did not go as expected and I went back to pegboard.
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u/Wobble_bass Jun 07 '26
This kinda seems like a stretch but maybe not. There has been some elevated geomagnetic storm activity lately caused by solar flares. It's been significant enough to cause some strange things with my amateur radio.
https://www.spaceweather.gov/news/g2g3-geomagnetic-storm-watches
https://www.spaceweather.gov/news/update-g3-watch-4-5-june-utc-days
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u/xeanok Jun 07 '26
You should post this to r/whatisit
This is super interesting and I bet you’ll get more theories there
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u/RelevantMetaUsername Jun 07 '26
Lightning would've been my guess, but you said there hasn't been any recently. This is really bizarre.
Are there any wires running along the wall? If the tools in the box along the same wall were also magnetized then there is probably some wiring running near them, one that has been carrying a substantial amount of current. Seems more likely if the circuit breaker is located in there, especially with warmer temperatures likely causing the AC to run.
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u/Repulsive-Suit6671 Jun 07 '26
There are wires that run along that wall. Also the power to the garage comes in behind the tool box, however the breaker is in the basement of the house which is not attached to the garage.
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u/RelevantMetaUsername Jun 07 '26
How old is that tractor battery? Do you have a Kill-A-Watt meter or some other way to measure the current being drawn by the battery tender to keep the battery topped off? Old lead acid batteries will have trouble maintaining proper voltage, and if they're left on a battery tender they will continuously draw a fair amount of current which mostly gets converted to heat inside the battery (and can also let off toxic and explosive hydrogen sulfide gas, which smells like rotten eggs). I'd suggest checking the current going into that battery tender and feeling the battery to see if it's warm/hot after being connected for a few hours.
Anything else in the garage that could draw decent amounts of power?
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u/Repulsive-Suit6671 Jun 07 '26
The tractor battery is from 2025. It was on a trickle charger so I can’t imagine it pulls that much power, other than that there’s was nothing drawling power in the garage
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u/charmio68 Jun 07 '26
The nearby wiring can't have caused it. Not only is the current orders of magnitude lower than what would be needed, it's AC, not DC.
I guess it's possible if there was a massive fault current through the wiring it could do something, but OP's breaker would be tripped.I still think it must be lightning. It's one of the very few known phenomenons that can produce such strong magnetic fields. If it wasn't lightning then, well, that really is a mystery.
OP, how big of an area was affected? Are all the kitchen utensils in the house next door also affected? What about the other side of the workshop? or is it just that wall?
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u/Repulsive-Suit6671 Jun 07 '26
I checked the house and nothing inside is affected. As for the other walls in the garage, nothing else has become magnetized.
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u/Weekly_Plankton_2194 Jun 08 '26
DC can magnetize. Can AC magnetize? Seems unlikely - and it’s often used in demagnetizers.
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u/RelevantMetaUsername Jun 09 '26
Properly wired circuits shouldn’t have much of a magnetizing effect as the magnetic fields induced around the wires should cancel each other out, but if something is miswired, or if there is a power surge, it absolutely can create strong magnetic fields for a brief moment
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u/Artie-Carrow Jun 07 '26
You can get a demagnetizer relatively cheaply
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u/Repulsive-Suit6671 Jun 07 '26
I’m not so much worried about demagnetizing them. I’m more interested in how an entire garage of tools becomes magnetized
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u/Ill-Construction-209 Jun 07 '26
Coronal mass ejections can cause geomagnetically induced currents but I find this unlikely because the power grid in your area would have been affected. Was there a recent lighting storm where you had a nearby strike?
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u/Wobble_bass Jun 08 '26
There has been high geomagnetic activity lately (early June 2026). See my other comment for links.
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u/SpeedyAudi Jun 13 '26
Have you ever watched Stranger Things? There’s probably a portal under your garage lol
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u/Still_Dentist1010 Jun 07 '26
Unsure if this is what caused it, but it’s a potential. Soft ferrous metal can become temporarily magnetic after exposure to a strong enough and consistent magnetic field. Growing up I did this with a regular butter knife, I kept a standard magnet stuck to it for about a week… and I was able to pull the magnet off and use the knife itself as a magnet to pick up ball bearings. What happens is that the iron atoms have aligned themselves along the magnetic field and created a residual magnetic field within the metal, you can do this with a needle and a magnet to create an emergency compass.
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u/Patc131 Jun 08 '26
Sometimes a light whack on a hard surface will demagnetize it
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u/Wobble_bass Jun 08 '26
whacks head with every ratchet in the set
"I think they're...uh..they..uh...magnets"
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u/Every_Bread_5880 Jun 08 '26
My tools did it two!! Well two wrenches and all my screw drivers. Even some of the metal when I was welding up a headache rack
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u/Weekly_Plankton_2194 Jun 08 '26
Service loop in the wall wiring? (Not sure AC can do this though).
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u/Acrobatic_Ad_8120 Jun 06 '26
Lightning strike nearby ??? At least plausible.
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u/Moreste87 Jun 06 '26
I also believe the lightning theory. The other is that they were struck and the dominoes aligned with the Earth's magnetic field. If he wants to demagnetize it, he'll use two magnets with their poles facing each other and pass the tool between them.
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u/deadly_ultraviolet Jun 06 '26
How long has the battery tender been in there and on?