Hard Drive Platters - Any Problems With Melting?

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Pete W.:
Hi there, all,

I feel I should emphasise that I'm not contemplating home foundrywork - that's one of my retirement projects I've had to cull now I've commenced my 80th orbit. My concern was whether I could legitimately offer the platters to the scrap metal dealer as aluminium without any qualifiers.

An aside regarding 'recycling' of old computer hard drives: we offered some NeFeB magnets on eBay. One buyer was a biker who wanted stronger magnets for his tank-bag. He contacted us later to say how pleased he was, his tank-bag now stayed firmly attached to his tank at 'about a ton'!!

We have a 70 MPH limit so I'm left wondering what sort of a rolling road also simulates slip-stream? :ddb: :lol: :ddb: :lol: :ddb: :lol:

DMIOM:

--- Quote from: Will_D on May 14, 2016, 06:50:42 PM ---The disk platters make great mirrors!

--- End quote ---

or a heliograph?

in fact, how about a CNC-controlled heliograph? - feed it with almanac data, a good clock, your lat&long and receiver's lat&long, and a message text, and get it to flash the message in morse?

:proj:

Dave

awemawson:
Hang them on strings over your Runner Beans to scare the birds off :clap:

Pete W.:
First of all: For 'NeFeB', please read 'NdFeB'!!!!
Andrew, I've got enough platters to scare the birds off all the runner beans South of that 'line from Bristol to the Wash'!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

I've even got four that measure 5" diameter. They stored a whole 20 MB per platter in 1989!

sparky961:
A few years back I took a propane torch to one, just to see what would happen. I was surprised when the edge of it started to droop and appear as though there were a liquid in a bag of some sort. I quickly discovered what has already been said here - that there's aluminum inside and a plating on the outside. Pretty easy to melt, but not sure what sort of alloy is inside.

I wonder if due to the plating "skin" the oxidation effect while melting would be reduced. You could possibly melt inside the skin then dump the liquid into a container with other liquid.

Metal recyclers tend to greatly favour (and pay more for) metals of one type rather than anything mixed. Scrap aluminum doesn't go for much though.

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