Magnetic baskets that hold up to 15kg on thin steel. No drilling, no brackets, no holes — they snap onto a shed wall, a toolbox, a van panel or the side of a workbench, and move somewhere else in about three seconds when the job changes.
How is a basket different from a hook?
A hook carries its load tight against the wall. A basket carries it out from the wall, and that changes the physics.
Everything you put in a basket sits on a lever arm about 125mm long. The magnet is not just holding the weight — it is resisting the basket being levered off the wall. So with baskets, where you load the weight matters as much as how much of it there is.
The rule: heavy things at the back, against the wall. Light things at the front. A basket loaded with 10kg pushed hard against the steel is more secure than the same basket with 6kg sitting on the front lip.
Which size do I need?
All three hold up to 15kg. The difference is footprint, not strength.
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Small Utility Basket — 320 × 220 × 125mm. Sprays, cloths, small parts, fixings. The one most people start with.
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Large Utility Basket — 475 × 220 × 125mm. Twin magnets. Bottles, cleaning gear, PPE, longer items that overhang a small basket.
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Utility Basket with Towel Bar — 380 × 220 × 125mm. Adds a swing-down bar for rags, gloves, a hand towel or a roll.
All three come in black or white.
Will it hold on my wall?
A magnet needs a flat face to grip. That one fact decides everything, and it takes ten seconds to check.
The five-second test: stick a fridge magnet on the wall. If it sits flat and holds firmly, a Gator will too. If it rocks or slides off, you are on a curved profile — or on a non-magnetic metal like aluminium or 304 stainless, where no magnet will hold.
The measurement that decides it: a Gator needs about 50mm of flat steel for full contact. On ribbed or trapezoidal cladding, measure the flat face between two ribs. Fifty millimetres or more and you get the full rating.
Where baskets work at full strength: flat sheet and ribbed cladding — the profile on almost every modern shed, stable and workshop. Shipping container walls, which are 1.6mm steel with 72mm flat faces. Steel toolboxes, van and ute canopy panels, workbench frames, roller doors.
Where they don't: true corrugated — the wavy sinusoidal profile. The magnet only touches the crest of each wave, the contact patch is tiny, and holding power drops away sharply. It is the most common question we get and that is the straight answer. Timber, brick and render obviously won't hold a magnet either. For all of those, a Steel Wall Target gives you a flat steel face to work from — fix it once, then move baskets and hooks around it as often as you like.
What does "15kg" actually mean?
It is a shear rating — the downward load the basket carries once your gear is in it — tested on 16-gauge steel, about 1.6mm galvanised. That is what sheds, toolboxes, containers and vans are genuinely made of.
Most magnetic storage is advertised on pull force instead: how hard you would have to pull the magnet straight off the wall, measured on half-inch plate. Almost nothing in a real shed is half-inch plate, and no basket is ever loaded that way. Shear on thin steel is the number that describes what actually happens.
Working with hooks
Baskets and hooks share the same wall. A common shed wall runs MEGA hooks for bikes, hoses and ladders, MIDI hooks for hand tools and leads, and baskets underneath for everything that won't hang — sprays, rags, fixings, gloves. Nothing is fixed, so the wall gets rearranged as the work changes.
Amarra DIY Hub is the exclusive licensed distributor of Gator Magnetics in Australia and New Zealand.
