

To finish the DIY magnetic key holder I applied a boiled linseed oil to the entire piece. The rounded cup on the magnet will be facing out the back when assembled properly. Then I pressed the rare earth magnets into the holes with a mallet and a punch. The diameter of the magnets with the cup is 1.26″, so before mounting the magnets I sanded the edges to take off just a little material.

And please be sure you drill on the backside of the wood!!! This will leave about 1/8″ of material between the magnets and the face of the magnetic key holder. I set the depth stop so the point of the bit would bottom out just above the drill press table. I used a 1-1/4″ forstner bit to drill the holes for the magnets. Setting the bottom of the magnets 3/16″ from the lower edge of the key holder will let your keys hang off the bottom by the keyring.

I laid out the position for the magnets on the wooden key holder piece and set the spacing by eye. The magnet is actually in a metal cup with a plastic spacer around it and I left it all together. They are super strong and are actually made to be screwed to the wall and hold heavy items. The ones I’m using are rare earth magnets that are sold in a 3 pack. The heart of the DIY magnetic key holder is the magnets. I sanded the whole piece to 220 grit then moved to the next step. I used a combination of my oscillating sander for the flat parts and the spindle attachment for the softer curves.Īnd for the small details I used files, sanding sticks and just regular sandpaper. I peeled off the template and now the fun part…sanding. If you dip into the lines you can recover but it will just be a lot of sanding. The key here is to take it slow and not to go over the lines. I cut out the shape using my bandsaw, but you can just as easily do this with a jigsaw or scroll saw. You only need enough to keep it there so don’t go over board and it will be easy to peel off later. Then I put a coat of spray adhesive on the paper template and stuck it to the wood. I roughly cut around the state leaving a little bit of buffer around the edges. Soften and change the edges as you see fit, nobody will notice 🙂 When I did my Ohio state shape sign I cut on entire peninsula off the state. So I redrew the lines straight just for aesthetics. I noticed that the north and south borders of my state shape were curved. You can bigger and print on multiple pages if needed. I actually pasted the state shape picture into PowerPoint and scaled and rotated it to get it as large as possible. Here is the Tennessee shape I started with. I got the state shape from, which is actually a site for kids…but the shapes are great because they soften some of the crazy details of the states. I picked a piece of wood for my magnetic key holder that would fit my state shape. I’ll save you all those processing steps and just get to the good stuff. If you watch the video above you’ll see that I took it from rough form to a piece that was 1/2″ thick. To make my magnetic key holder I used a nice piece of hardwood walnut.
