Originally Posted by
Tiggersmom
Sif I put one of those super heavy duty magnets in the center where it sits on top of the pretty plastic would it work the same as a Zirkel????
To get star-burst alignment of your pins, you need to have the magnet positioned so that its poles are at the very top and bottom of the magnet. I strongly suspect that the raised area in the very center of the Zirkel is also important, as it prevents the pin from sliding over enough to have the pin crossing over the pole, or having a messy cluster in the center. You would definitely want to have the magnet sitting
under the plastic, not on top of it. If you've got a magnet handy, you can experiment with it, just putting some thin cardboard or heavy paper over it to form a flat surface for the pins. I don't see any way the Zirkel can distinguish between the two ends of the pin, but if you have the tips closer to the center of the Zirkel than the heads when you let go of the pins, it makes sense that they would form that tips-in alignment.