Pliable Iron?

[dalesvp]

This might be the craziest question of all time.

Has anyone here ever heard of or seen a form of magnetic material (like iron/steel) that is so soft it can be bent with an ordinary magnet?

[SGW]

A thin piece of shim stock? That's probably not what you mean though.

[PTSideshow]

Somebody was making a magic/illusion trick out of the mag sheet that the door sign on car/trucks/fridge mags are made from. It comes in a sheet on rolls I still have most of a roll I think it was 32" or so wide and 50 feet long. The trick used rare earth magnets and a construction out of the mag material. part of the gag used palming the rare earth mag in the hand and pressing it the hand palm down towards the steel construct resting between two plastic tumblers and it would bow in the middle if everything would be correctly set up.
It didn't go over to big because it wasn't a grabando, no good for party clowns and magi working out of a suitcase at 30 miles an hour
Don't know if thats what you may have seen or heard about, thin sheet steel or wire style rod will bend near a strong enough magnet.

[Evan]

The collars on factory made hydraulic lines are crimped on by a magnetic field. Magnetic fields can be made strong enough to have effects similar to explosives in deforming metals. The metals don't have to be magnetic either. Any conductor can be affected via eddy current induction.

[topct]

I have seen aluminum ingots formed within an electromagnetic field.

[dalesvp]

Deformable steel/iron

Thanks for all the replies. I didn't know about some of that stuff.

I was thinking more along the lines of a "solid" piece of iron or steel that an ordinary powered magnetic could deform. I don't know that such a thing exists but as the very well informed people on this list don't seem to know of it either I reckon such a thing does not exist. It is a whacky idea though....
Thanks again.

Just now thought of LIQUID METAL. This is not what I was asking about either but it is interesting:
http://www.liquidmetal.com/applications/dsp.casings.asp

[Paul Alciatore]

It may depend on how much deflection you are talking about. Any bell or buzzer has an armature that is bent back and then allowed to spring forth by the power of a really ordinary, really cheap electromagnet. These have been around for at least 100 years.

More robust pieces of steel or iron can also be deflected by small amounts by ordinary magnets. Emphasis on small.

If you want to see a lot of deflection with a larger piece, you could use some powdered steel mixed in some flexible plastic material. Or perhaps the labs have some new, wonder metal. After all, mercury is a metal and a liquid at room temperature. What you want is the world's weakest alloy steel.