Make it stick
They wouldn’t be very good fridge magnets if they didn’t stick to the fridge. To make them strong, I used rare-earth magnets. Inset each magnet flush with the back of each frame. My magnets had a 3⁄8" diameter, but if you want your magnets to have more strength, you can go larger—right up to 1" diameter. You may need some help pulling the 1" magnets off the fridge, though; they are incredibly strong.
Back on the drillpress, bore a flat-bottomed hole the same diameter as the magnet and slightly deeper than your magnet thickness. Glue the magnet in place with a little five-minute epoxy.
Back it up
The hardest part of this whole pro-ject was trying to find a way to back the pictures in the frames. I considered all kinds of solutions, from those plastic stoppers used in piggy banks to mini-hinged arrangements. I finally settled on using 1⁄4"-thick hardboard cut to fit snugly in the opening as a backer. Trouble is, I didn’t have a hole saw that would cut a circle that small. What I came up with is easy and, even better, and I didn’t need to buy a new bit.
Mark 1 1⁄8" circles on the hardboard by putting the 1 1⁄8"-diameter Forstner bit back in the drillpress. Lower it into the hardboard until it just starts to cut, then raise the bit. This step marks out perfectly fitting circles without even having to sharpen a pencil. I sawed around the circles with the bandsaw, then sanded to just proud of the line with a disc sander.
Give your frames a few coats of finish; I used three coats of brush-on lacquer. Trim your photos to fit and slide them in with the backer boards.
The pictures are now ready to take their place of honour in the kitchen. And don’t forget to reward yourself for a job well done. Hey, you are going to be at the fridge anyway…
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