Ok I have a neodymium magnet, stuck to my fridge holding a old bottle cap opener for my beer it works fine. At the local rummage sale there was a beautiful cap opener my freind was selling for $0.25 she said had never beenUsed it was like 40 years old it is made a stainless steel. The magnet will not stick to it. I don't understand this looked this up and certain steels are not magnetic, I tried a experiment with my compass it don't point north as should it follows the bottle opener as I move it around it. If not magnetic why is this happening? Also tried placing near another neodymium magnet with a pull of about 200 lbs. Not I tiny bit of attraction to the metal. If so why is the tiny magnet in the compass attracted to it. But not a huge powerfull magnet.
That's interesting that it caused deflection in the compass. A lot of stainless steels may be SLIGHTLY magnetic, because they have small amounts of ferrite or alpha-iron in them. Ferrite is one of the crystal phases of steel. It has a body-centered cubic (BCC) structure and it's responsible for the magnetism of ordinary steels. Adding certain elements like nickel, manganese, or molybdenum, changes the crystal structure of the steel to a face-centered cubic (FCC) structure, which is NOT magnetic. This crystal phase is known as Austenite or gamma-iron. However most iron alloys contain some impurities that may cause the steel to be not completely transformed into the FCC austenite phase, small areas remain as ferrite.
