I was doing some blacksmithing in high school, mostly knifes.
When reaching 800°C steel is not magnetic anymore, it’s also a good temperature to start forging the steel. So I needed a atrong magnet to know when the steel was hot enough, I used what I have available: a hard drive magnet.
It felt quite “mad-maxy” to disassemble a broken hard drive to use it as a tool to forge knifes
That’s rad, and you did an amazing job keeping them whole. Recently I have been wrapping them in cloth, then the kids form clay around them for various fridge and office magnets.
That’s a good idea. Yeah, the trick I discovered in getting them off the mounting bracket without the chrome plating peeling is to grab each end of the bracket with vice grips and/or pliers (after you unscrew it from the drive) and just bend it down and away from the magnet. They usually come off in one piece that way, too.
Cool, I’ll try this next time. So far the least damaging way I’ve tried is putting the thing in hot water. The magnet and the base expand by different amounts and it is relatively easy to pry the magnet off. But the thing cools down quickly so it takes a few tries.
I’ve done some of that, recently I have an old putty knife and I will put it right against the crack and just hammer it which will unstick it enough that I can pull it off. Newer drives definitely have weaker magnets than some of my much older ones.
Thought it was just me. Used to have at least twice this many in my old office:
I was doing some blacksmithing in high school, mostly knifes.
When reaching 800°C steel is not magnetic anymore, it’s also a good temperature to start forging the steel. So I needed a atrong magnet to know when the steel was hot enough, I used what I have available: a hard drive magnet.
It felt quite “mad-maxy” to disassemble a broken hard drive to use it as a tool to forge knifes
That’s rad, and you did an amazing job keeping them whole. Recently I have been wrapping them in cloth, then the kids form clay around them for various fridge and office magnets.
That’s a good idea. Yeah, the trick I discovered in getting them off the mounting bracket without the chrome plating peeling is to grab each end of the bracket with vice grips and/or pliers (after you unscrew it from the drive) and just bend it down and away from the magnet. They usually come off in one piece that way, too.
Cool, I’ll try this next time. So far the least damaging way I’ve tried is putting the thing in hot water. The magnet and the base expand by different amounts and it is relatively easy to pry the magnet off. But the thing cools down quickly so it takes a few tries.
I’ve done some of that, recently I have an old putty knife and I will put it right against the crack and just hammer it which will unstick it enough that I can pull it off. Newer drives definitely have weaker magnets than some of my much older ones.
Wow it looks like a light sweeper