Not sure what you are ultimately trying to accomplish but putting a magnet one side of a steel bar will effectively short out the magnet, so I would not expect to get an awful lot of magnetism on the other side.
If you want the magnetism to pass through as it were they would need to be isolated a bit to channel the effect as in transformer laminations which are effectively insulated on one side such that the magnetic effect is channeled around the laminations and not leaking out the sides.
I think you need more design input.

Peter