I have painted most of my Altoid tins and the paint actually makes the can
harder to open, so I suspect I won't have any trouble with them staying
closed, at least for a while.  I found some magnet tape - quarter inch wide
flexible magnet with adhesive on the back which has worked great for me so
far.  I tried magnetic business card backing which is a thin flat business
card sized magnet with adhesive, but the strength of the magnet was too weak
to hold the altoid tin where I tried it.  I think the problem with your
Altoid tin whose JB Weld didn't hold (being the first one to find the magnet
detached from the tin) in addition to your theory on the smooth surface, is
that your rare earth magnets are just too strong!  They hold to the surface
you are attracted to better than the magnet plus the JB Weld holds onto the
tin itself....

BTW, I got off of my duff and put one of my Altoid micros out while running
errands just before lunch.  Now I only have one altoid tin burning a hole in
my pocket, ready to be placed....  Of course, I've got a stack of empty
altoid tins ready to be prepared for geocaching!

Jim.

On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, Scott Wood wrote:

> At 10:10 AM 6/13/2002 -0700, you wrote:
> 
> >The best I have seen, that work the best are the magnetic key holders.
> 
> I gave the mechanism of how they stay closed a little thought and decided 
> that since they are fairly easy urban caches I would just plan on replacing 
> the cans from time to time.  I am still working a little on the 
> magnets.  Both that I have out right now use rare earth magnets held on 
> with JB Weld.  I have reports that the magnet has already come off of one 
> of my caches but the magnet is strong enough to still hold it in place.  I 
> think my problem is that the altoid can surface is very smooth and I might 
> need to "rough" it up some so I have more surface area for the glue to 
> adhere to.
> 
> 
> Scott
> Team My Blue Heaven
> www.myblueheaven.com/geocache
> 
> 
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> 

Jim Scotti                              
Lunar & Planetary Laboratory         jscotti@pirl.lpl.arizona.edu 
University of Arizona                
Tucson, AZ 85721 USA                 http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/