Magnetic knife rack

[glitch]

My collection of knives is growing by the day and I'm fast outgrowing my current knife block - something which has led me to consider a wall-mounted magnetic knife rack.

Problem is, I don't want a metal one. They look a bit cheap and they have a tendency to scratch the knives if you're not careful what you're doing. And while you can get metal racks with little rubber runners on them, they look awful. And I don't want a bamboo one either, as it would stick out like a sore thumb in my kitchen.

So, I'm wondering what to do. I've seen these offerings but I'm not so keen on the little brass screws as they seem to stand out a bit. I'd really want something that looked like a solid piece of wood; similar to this, but not that eye-wateringly expensive.

One of these would be a cheap alternative, but it's a little too short at 30cm, and I'm not totally sold on a beech one like this either.

So, any ideas?

 

[glitch]

Make your own? Decent magnetic strip covered by a wood you actually like.

Alas, I lack all the necessary woodworking skills to achieve such a feat.

They just need another turn tbh

Very good! Are you here all week? Should I tip the waitress?

 

[glitch]

If you can find wood that ou like, you can buy neodymium magnets (rare earth, v v powerful). Find a nice strong magnet suitable for it. Buy a forster bit, and drill into the wood until 1-2mm shy of the front. Then using araldite, cement the magnets into place.

If you cannot find what you want, then hack it!

That sounds dangerously like DIY, which I'm pretty useless at.

And ideally I'd want these earth magnets running along in a big strip, unless I could get the holes close enough together to make it seem like one long strip.

Are earth magnets likely to be easy enough to 'snap' the knives off from the other side? Or will they grab and not let go?