Need help with iron solenoid/core for an electromagnet?

mrphaam

i'm making an electromagnet with a battery, some copper wire, and a iron solenoid/core. For the core i'm using is a magnetic spoon, i was just wondering, will it work?

here's a picture, http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/9348/spoont.jpg , i'm not done wrapping the wire

basically it's either the spoon, or a magnetic nail the size of my finger

Simon Bridge

Welcome to PF;
You will certainly have an electromagnet once the current is going - you may want to check the resistance to see what sort of current to expect. That will give you an idea of the likely magnetic field.

Apart from that, it depends on what you mean by "work": what do you hope it will do?

frogjg2003

A quick hint: the more you wind it, and the tighter you wind it, the stronger the magnetic field will be.

sophiecentaur

If you want to make a good electromagnet, you can't beat the iron fomer you can get out of an old chuckout transformer. A bit of a struggle to strip it apart but it could be well worth the effort.
Most of the 'iron' you find around the place is, in fact, steel, which tends to stay magnetised once you turn off the current and you may not want that. Transformers have 'soft iron' which is just what you want.