Hard-disks ?????

B

Bart student

Joined
Nov 17, 1999
Messages
676
Hello Folks,

I have recently obtained several harddisks, all old ones ranging from 12 to 120 MB.
What has that to do with knives?
Well, I disassembled a few, and the disks inside are very hard, but still easy fileable, NON-magnetic, non-corrosive. And very flexible, I suspect it could be used as liner, scale, washer, even maybe forged to make damascus if it is nickel.

The stuff really puzzels me, please help?

Greetz, and thanks in advance, Bart.

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"If the world wouldn't SUCK, we'd all fall off !"

member of the BKS
http://www.expage.com/belgianknives
 
Hard drive disks are an aluminum core with a coating of a ferrous alloy, with a very low iron content. I've melted them before. Far more useful are the neodymium (also known as rare earth) magnets inside hard drives. They're incredibly strong. Also, the hulls of them are aluminum, possibly with some flux to help it melt easier. They seem to melt a bit easier than some other sources of Al that I've used.

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Oz

"I went to one of those so-called 'All you can eat' buffets last night, and I'm on to their little game.
They stop filling up the thousand island bucket after you empty it three or four times."
http://www.freespeech.org/oz/
 
i ripped apart a fairly new one and it seemed like maybe magnesium-i know it wasn't aluminum

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I'm a Schizophrenic and so am I
 
Hello folks,

osbourn: are you sure that's aluminium? It is fairly heavy, heavier than titanium, lighter than iron (steel). If it's aluminium, it is a certain alloy, because these thing are a lot more flexible than steel, like the tent-ribs made out of an easton aluminium-alloy. I believe 6061-T6, the 6061 is the alloy - some iron, titanium and others, the T-6 is the heat-treath.
Damn, I was hoping it was nickel, so I could try some nickel damascus. I am still collecting beercaps tough. Do you perhaps know a source of pure nickel?

Belstain: This one does not look like magnesium, because that stuff would have ignited when I tried to melt one. But I agree, it surely isn't aluminium.

greetz & thanks for the replies. Bart
 
Well, O.K. It surely isn't PURE aluminium.
It could be an alloy....but that does not matter. Aluminium is not usable to me.
I wish it were nickel....Back to beerbottlecaps.

------------------
"If the world wouldn't SUCK, we'd all fall off !"

member of the BKS
http://www.expage.com/belgianknives
 
I've melted dozens of them. The newest one I melted was a 6.4gb, so it wasn't exactly ancient, the oldest I've melted was 20mb. The disks themselves have an aluminum core with an alloy coating, but I know that it's not nickel. I haven't encountered a housing that wasn't some form of aluminum, most of it about the same purity as soda cans, which I've melted thousands of.
I got some pure nickel at the Blade show from some suppliers there. I'm told that it's available in shim stock, too, but I haven't found a source yet. I'd love to find a cheap source, the piece I bought was 16 guage 6x12, and it cost me $15.00. I haven't done much damascus so far, so I expect this to be a rather expensive mistake.

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Oz

"I went to one of those so-called 'All you can eat' buffets last night, and I'm on to their little game.
They stop filling up the thousand island bucket after you empty it three or four times."
http://www.freespeech.org/oz/
 
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