Sintered alnico magnets are manufactured by compacting fine alnico powder in a press, and then sintering the compacted powder into a solid magnet. Sintered alnico has marginally lower magnetic properties, but better mechanical properties, than cast alnico. Both are hard and brittle materials and require skillful machining on specialized equipment. It is generally not recommended that these materials be used for structural or decorative purposes. Alnico magnets can be pressed directly into non-magnetic materials. For steel pressings, they should be enclosed in a nonferrous bushing. Sintered alnico 8H has a high temperature stability, coercivity, and demagnetization resistance similar to Cast alnico 8, but it can be manufactured to closer tolerances. Its fine grain structure results in highly uniform flux distribution and mechanical strength, so it is ideally suited to applications requiring short magnetic length or involving high-speed motion. Some applications include core meters, traveling wave tube stacks, polarized relays, reed switches, torque transmitting devices, and sandwich-type holding assemblies.