Oooooh, the possibilities.

I'd be interested in learning what your results are.

I'm no help in the identification quest, I just type and send the magic messages....

Tah!

Jo

Hard drive platters are generally made from aluminium or glass, depending on how old they are, with a very thin layer of magnetic material on the surface. The magnetic material on the surface used to be iron oxide and platters were a rust orange colour. Modern drives have an extremely thin film of material, typically based on cobalt, and generally coated with other extremely thin films for durability. The platter surface is very tough and resistant to corrosion.

Hi Rockyn,
There is a neat bunch of garden art in the accoutrements back in November. (Old CD's )Lots of cool pics. Even a car covered in cd's.
I'd love to see a pick of what you create.
Hypertufa and disks!!! anything is possible!!!!!
Debbie

Good Evening All: Since I am new to this forum and to the fine art of hypertufa this question may be old hat for most but I would like to know the secret of getting the fiberglass strands dispersed thru the mixture. All my attempts have left them in scattered bundles and clumps instead of being dispersed in the mix. Tried mixing with water first; didn't work. Any suggestions ??
Packrat

Add the fibres dry to the other dry ingredients, or at least one of the other dry ingredients, and mix together. Then mix them some more, you can never mix enough, especially the cement :)

Which fibres do you have exactly? The right type mixes quite well. Fibreglass, as in the stuff you add to resin to make plastic stuff, is not good and clumps horribly.

The disk made it thru the rain unscathed....time will tell.

The fibers I have are really short and I think are nylon. I sometimes take a small handfull and rub em between my thumb and fingers to fluff em up even more. A good brainless TV-watching activity.

I should have mentioned that the thin film cobalt-based hard drive coatings have a dark shiny appearance.

I've been asking the local techies this question as well. So far, we've eliminated glass (cause they bend) and aluminum (would warp under some conditions). Since they don't respond to magnets, I'm guessing that leaves out steel and tin.

Gee, don't tell me that they might be titanium?

As far as the cobalt coating, that might be what it is, but the disks I have all seem to be quite bright. No darker than a household mirror.

Maybe next week I'll have a chance to haul out the Dremel and split one.

The platter might be titanium if it is pretty new, but I'd be surprised. I wouldn't rule out aluminium, those platters aren't just cut out of a sheet of the stuff you'd find at HD! Flexibility doesn't even rule out glass, there are glass/ceramic mixes that have some flex. The platter absolutely won't be steel or tin. Aluminium is by far the most common material for thin film coatings.

If the coating is shiny and not orange (rust-coloured) then it is the thin film type, a cobalt alloy with an overcoat. It should be very resistant to corrosion. It is actually magnetic (hard drive, duh!) but there is so little of it and it is arranged in such a way that you'll get almost no response to a magnet.

It's varies.. most the DT size hard-drives are metal with coatings.

Laptop drives are often(were) a type of ceramic/porcelain base.