Halfway through 2026, the machinery that keeps South African mining, processing and recycling lines both safe and clean is drawing fresh attention. Mechani Mags, a Boksburg manufacturer that operates online under the African Magnets name, goes on building and shipping magnetic separators engineered to strip tramp metal from material flows before it wrecks crushers, mills, screens and the rest of the downstream plant. Working from its JetPark base in Gauteng, the firm engineers and manufactures this gear on home soil, serving operations nationwide and beyond South Africa's borders.

What is tramp metal? It is the stray iron and steel that slips into ore, coal, scrap and recycled feed. Broken tools, bucket teeth, bolts, plates and offcuts all ride the conveyor belt, and a single piece is enough to crack a crusher liner, rip a belt or idle a plant for hours on end. This is exactly where Mechani Mags does its work. Suspended overband magnets sit above the running conveyor, draw ferrous items up out of the burden and sweep them aside on a self-cleaning belt, sparing operators the need to halt the line and dig out a blockage by hand.

An oil-free answer to an old headache

Leading the catalogue is the company's dry-type electro-magnet, an oil-free suspended unit purpose-built to lift tramp metal off conveyors. Suspended magnets of the earlier generation tended to rely on oil cooling, a choice that piled on weight, introduced a contamination hazard and demanded more upkeep across the unit's service life. Mechani Mags has cut the oil out completely. Fans are gone too, eliminating yet another cluster of moving parts prone to failure in dust-heavy settings.

Sold as a dry magnetic separator, the unit carries several features the company says count on an active site. Its drive combines a WEG IE3 motor with a SEW gearbox, and the magnet meets the IE4 efficiency class, which the firm reckons is close to fifty percent more energy-efficient than conventional models. Where separation gear runs non-stop, that gap in power consumption compounds across a full year. An IP66 rating seals the unit against both dust and water, and it is engineered to work at any angle, fully inverted included, so the plant layout dictates the mounting rather than the reverse.

The build is heavy-duty, with stainless steel running throughout to withstand the wet, abrasive and corrosive surroundings typical of mineral processing and recycling yards. Underground sites are catered for with explosion-protection certified variants, letting the same self-cleaning method work where standard kit simply would not be allowed.

A line-up shaped by what plants actually need

Alongside its flagship overband magnet, Mechani Mags makes a ferrochrome magnet that draws on rare earth elements to part ferrochrome from slag, a niche job in the ferroalloy trade where pulling metal back out of waste streams feeds straight into yield. The firm additionally builds heavy-duty lifting magnets for scrap handling, ball loading and furnace loading, sealed units designed for those duty cycles rather than for hanging over a conveyor.

Filling out the offering is a suite of auxiliaries that keep the primary gear running: control panels, flame-retardant belting, suspension chain sets and spare parts. Since the company builds the equipment in-house, it can furnish these back-up items as standard instead of pointing customers elsewhere.

On a modern plant, spotting and removing metal work as a pair, and operators keen to catch metal before it hits a fragile machine frequently combine magnetic separation with a conveyor metal detector so that non-magnetic tramp metal gets flagged too. Mechani Mags casts its magnetic equipment as the removal stage within that broader protection scheme, automatically clearing ferrous material off the belt the moment it registers as a threat to the line.

Support that outlasts the sale

For Mechani Mags, handing over the equipment marks the opening of a longer partnership, not its close. The company repairs and upgrades units already in service, trains the crews that run and maintain the gear, and inspects sites to verify that magnets are correctly installed and performing to spec. It further issues compliance reports and performs gauss testing, the measurement of magnetic field strength that proves a unit is still lifting metal at its designed level.

That matters because a suspended magnet that has faded over the years can appear functional while quietly allowing tramp metal past. Routine gauss testing hands an operation a documented reason to trust its separation gear, and the compliance reporting feeds the safety and maintenance records that mines and processing plants must keep.

Who relies on the equipment

The company serves the mining, mineral processing and recycling industries, sectors that face the same underlying tramp-metal exposure despite handling different feed materials. In recycling, the metal is frequently the product itself, and clean separation determines the value of the output. In mining and processing, the metal is the danger, and stripping it out shields costly plant and keeps production flowing. Mechani Mags has delivered equipment used by major players in the resources sector, and its work is pitched at the tough conditions those operations endure.

Mid-2026 sees plenty of South African operations scrutinising energy costs and maintenance budgets. Gear that pulls less power, asks for less attention and sidesteps the contamination risk of oil-cooled designs answers those pressures head-on. The firm presents its dry-type approach as a route to hitting safety and throughput targets without inflating the running costs that bear down on a plant month after month.

Made locally, sold widely

By designing and constructing the equipment in Gauteng, Mechani Mags keeps a grip on quality and lead times, and it puts support within easy reach of South African customers. The company also exports, so identical equipment lands at operations outside the country. In a sector routinely held up by imported parts and drawn-out delivery schedules, a local manufacturer that keeps the design, the build and the after-sales service under one roof offers a real edge.

Oil-free design, energy efficiency, self-cleaning operation and local support together form the heart of the Mechani Mags proposition as 2026 unfolds. The company keeps tuning its equipment to the real conditions its customers face, from underground mines requiring certified protection to recycling yards that push their separation lines hard day after day.

Find out more

Operations aiming to shield their plant from tramp metal, reclaim ferrous material from their streams or replace ageing separation gear can browse the complete range and the accompanying services on the Mechani Mags website at https://africanmagnets.com/. The site lays out the dry-type electro-magnet, the ferrochrome magnet, the lifting magnets and the auxiliaries, together with the repair, training, inspection and testing services that accompany them.

About Mechani Mags

Mechani Mags is a Boksburg manufacturer trading online as African Magnets that designs and builds magnetic separation equipment from its JetPark base in Gauteng. The range spans suspended overband magnets, a dry-type oil-free electro-magnet, ferrochrome magnets and heavy-duty lifting magnets, plus control panels, belting and spare parts. Serving the mining, mineral processing and recycling sectors throughout South Africa and exporting more widely, the company stands behind its equipment with repairs, training, site inspections and gauss testing.

Media Contact
Mechani Mags
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +27 11 397 6870
Website: https://africanmagnets.com/