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PostPosted: Thu Nov 16, 2017 4:16 pm 
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It’s usually stamped as such. Beyond that it’s practice.

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PostPosted: Sun Jul 08, 2018 7:17 am 

Joined: Tue Jun 19, 2018 4:52 pm
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flyfish2k wrote:
how do you test for Magnesium?

Don't try the old "flame test" for magnesium. If you heat it with the propane torch, it will ignite and burn with a brilliant blue-white flame until nothing is left but a powdery ash. I learned this when trying to cut out rusty bolts from junk lawnmower frames years ago


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PostPosted: Sun Jul 08, 2018 4:11 pm 
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David: absolutely correct. Magnesium is a very volatile metal.
Magnesium flame testing... you’re not actually burning it but igniting it.
Magnesium is used in Roman candles, aerial fireworks, and MOST fire based fuses. Gives off beautiful sparks.

So how do you tell magnesium from manganese? Well I guess the fastest way is to make a pile and set it on fire.
Anything left over that is metal is manganese. The powder is un-scrapable magnesium oxide.
Makes great fertiliser for conifers though! ;)

Bottom line is don’t. Just a bad idea. And if you must, NEVER throw water on the blase. You get instantaneous oxidation and hydrogen release creating a big explosion, 10,000•+ flame, a blinding (as in never see again) flash, and that’s assuming you survive the heat blast.

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PostPosted: Thu Jul 26, 2018 12:40 pm 

Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2014 2:15 pm
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You can place those top covers of steel and stainless steel in an old pot (not one your wife cooks with) and heat the water to boil and the glue holding the two metals will get loose and you can put shred in one pile and stainless in another


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PostPosted: Fri Jul 24, 2020 10:47 am 

Joined: Fri Jun 12, 2020 3:40 pm
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Lost,
I too have a good amount of hard drive actuators that i pulled the tips, wire, and little control boards. My question is must you pull the little square head off the metal or can you simply snip the end of the reader head with metal attached?
And you mentioned the boards, are you referring to the small boards mounted to the side of the actuator arm?

I attached a photo to show you what i mean, is the one on the far right acceptable or must it be removed from the metal? Thanks Lost!


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PostPosted: Fri Jul 24, 2020 1:16 pm 
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mjm316 wrote:
..!

If you are sniping for rhodium there not much of a loss in just snipping the metal end while. I found my current buyer only “fees” on it about 6%. Just minimise the extra metal to stay in recovery vs breakage.

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PostPosted: Wed Oct 07, 2020 7:56 pm 

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if you boil the outside harddrive shell in a pot of water the glue will soften and the stainless will seperate from the ferrous...carefully


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PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2020 5:23 am 

Joined: Fri Nov 06, 2020 12:11 am
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Two questions for clarification that was discussed in this thread.

1) This pile up top is considered peripheral? Yes?

2) Ok... where is this Rhodium that everyone is mentioning? I'm assuming is the A circle, but no idea what the B circle is.


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PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2020 3:27 pm 
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1 yes

2 on the right track.
Inside the outer shell is a small magnetic bead that contains a piece of rhodium.

The head itself is tiny and the rhodium bead even tinier. But... at $15000 high and 8000 avg today, clean, it doesn’t take much to get a refinery interested.
I’m personally pulling the neodymium magnets and permalloy from drives which requires me to pull out the arm anyway.
So I use a pair of super scissors to snip the arm ends into empty pill bottles.

You need a LOT of drives to reach an ounce pure. But for anyone already refining at home or those selling scrap jewellery there’s no reason to /not/ spend 10 seconds cutting arm heads off.

I tried to make the two important issues clear. This is THE most expensive thing in escrap. This is NOT going to make you rich.
Read head trimmings are running around $600 per pound (commercial bulk) which should help you understand just how much you need to make money.

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