Are There Non-Metallic Magnetic Shields?

A. Joe,

To be terse. succinct and horribly brief

NO, NO, NO. ...although surely there must be some doubting Thomases around who will want, in vain, to give an affirmative.

Magnetism has to do, I believe, with ferrous metals, IRON. Eg. the compass needle ... no plastics could be magnetic unless one added some iron to the matrix which would sure screw up their properties!

I don't know if rust, i.e., ferric oxide, is magnetic. Try it out but I'd imagine even that is magnetic.

Why in the heck do you want to know that anyway?

A. Sorry, D, but I think there is no such thing as a magnetic field blocker at all, let alone a non-metallic one. Maxwell's equations seem to prove that it is impossible to block magnetism; rather, what you can do is provide the magnetism a more favorable path. Magnetic "shielding" doesn't actually "block" magnetism, it draws it towards an easier path, so I don't see how you could have a non-metallic "shield". But good luck, and maybe I'm wrong.

Regards,

A. The little round tubular data filters on high end data cables on your computer are ferrite cores. They are magnetic material with no particular pattern. They can decrease the magnetic field of the nearby magnet by dispersing it. Sadly, magnets stick to them due to their contents and will be of no use in your project.