Containing a magnetic field?

I am about to start work on the Hall effect sensors for a dual flight stick setup I am building. The plan is to house the magnets inside a cylinder that will rotate around the sensor. I have read that it is possible to contain the field within a cylinder their by increasing the effect on the sensor. It's entirely likely that I simply misunderstood what I had read but would appreciate any comments regarding this. If it is an option what material would best be used to house the magnets? I was planning either aluminium or mild steel.

Thanks
Shawn

Hi Shawn, I have trialed hall effect sensors and my opinion with regard to flight controls is that they are a bit of overkill, do you really need them? I buy decent 10k linear pots for my products that are guaranteed for 30,000 cycles, if one fails you are up for another $6.00 to replace it!! I replaced a near new "noisy" pot on a set of my rudders for a customer three weeks ago and this was the first failure in six years of operating!
Cheers Gwyn

I have actually found the Hall effect sensors to be a bit of a pain in the butt to setup but that is offset by the fact that I don't have to deal with gears. These controls would be particularly difficult to add gears too which is why I'm going the Hall effect route. The last controls I built had the sensors rotating around the magnet which caused some of my grief I think. This set will be the opposite which I hope makes things a bit simpler.