Sculpture I made out of rare earth magnets.
As you might have guessed from the title and the above sculpture, I took apart hard drives to recycle them. We are having the carpets at the office cleaned on Friday, and in the process of picking things up off the floor under desks, I pulled out a box of old hard drives that I had taken out of computers before I sent them off to recycling. I had intended to recycle those drives for years. Some of the hard drives were over 20 years old.
I could have taken them to an electronics recycler, but they charge a fee to destroy hard drives. But I wouldn’t know that the drives were truly destroyed unless I witnessed the recycler destroying the drives. So I took the drives apart and threw the drive cases in one box, the tops off the drives in a second box, the circuit boards, the swingarm, and other plastic parts in a third box, and the platters in a fourth box. I put all the rings and turnstiles in a bag. It seems they could be used to make jewelry or other crafty things. Things like the “my little pillow” filters went into the trash, and all the screws were tossed into a plastic thingamajig parts drawer.
A Stack-O-Drives. Half of the drives I took apart for recycling. The start of the first rare earth magnet sculpture I put together as I took the magnets out of the drives sits atop the Stack-O-Drives.
Reflecting on a silver platter
Four platter drive. Depending on the size of the hard drives, they had one to four platters.
I was curious to see what a fast kitty 15K rpm drive looked like inside compared to the slow cat 7.2K rpm drives I’d been taking apart.
The first difference was the long screws securing the platters’ spindle and the swingarm. The second difference was smaller platters in a beefier case. The third difference was large rare earth magnets three to four times as thick as the other drive’s magnets, much wider and a whole lot stronger.
This hard drive’s platters were trashed on a couple of drives. The “my little pillow” filter was black from the dust that came off the ground surfaces of the platters.
“My little pillow” filters. Most filters were clean, but the drives with trashed platters had black filters. The drives also had little clear plastic cases filled with metallic-looking pellets that seemed like hard drive catalytic converters. They were most likely dehumidifiers.
That Platters ready to sing “I’ll Never Smile Again!”
Segregated parts of the hard drives ready for recycling.
The first two photos are of the rare earth magnet sculpture I put together as I took the magnets out of the drive. I knocked the first sculpture over, trying to put lights on it, and much of it came apart. The third photo is the second sculpture I put together with lights. I didn’t like that one, so I gave up on the lights and put together the sculpture in the lead photo.
Off Center & Not Even 
LOVE this, Tim! I don’t understand much of what you said, but I understand you are turning trash into art, and keeping your info safe at the same time.
Brilliant!!! The sculpture is spectacular! xo
Thanks, Resa. There is lots of good stuff for people to be creative with out of those hard drives.
No kidding! What a harvest. Poor earth s inundated. I’m happy you did this!!! xo
A testimony to endearing patience.
This is exactly what techno geeks do with their years of build-up techno clutter. I love how you sorted and arranged all the pieces and created a sculpture of all the techno debris you’ve been storing away for so long
Well done!!
Thanks, abvr.
You are welcome Timothy.
Agree!!!
💐, happy you see things the same way I do
Like Rest I don’t understand the techie stuff, but I LOVE the sculptures and what you have made from what might otherwise be considered junk. Great stuff:)
Thanks, Janet.
Love this post and your sculptures, Tim. They could be in a Steven Spielberg or Pixar movie…
Thanks, Herman. Come to think of it, they do look Pixary.
Excellent actually. AS is said above these could be in a movie. Or gracing some coffee table under some fancy name
It makes a nice centerpiece on my little conference table. Thanks, Shey.
You are so creative, Tim. It’s all Chinese to me, all the naming of the parts. I’m just a D.U. so it flies over my head. However, your sculpture is magnificent (and I agree, way better without the lights.) In the bottom three pictures, the second one is cool. Love the angle and shadows. It looks mysterious.
Thanks, Dale. Parts is Parts, but they do have names. I like the first sculpture a lot, but there was no recreating it after the fall.
I hear ya, Tim. And at least you got a pic of it! And that’s the way art can be. Like those who create chalk art – here today, gone after the first rain!
Or sand paintings that are destroyed at sundown.
Exactomundo! (I was going to use that as an example, too 😉 )
Wow, that is not a small work. You really took an afford to get them recycling ready.
It wasn’t too bad. Thanks, YC.
Very creative Tim! Now I have an idea what to do with the mounting pile of retired drives I’ve been holding onto. I share your concern about not having verification they were destroyed and have been offered the Intrigued range to take care of them, but that leaves a mess for someone (probably me as the low man on the totem pole) to clean up. I do enjoy taking things apart, sometimes more than putting them back together. Now I have a good winter project to keep me out of trouble.
Thanks for the incentive!
Thanks, Brad. I’m happy to give you an idea to help keep you busy during the dark, cold months of winter. Many years ago, I used to shoot hard drives before a gave them to electronics recyclers. Here’s some interesting stats. No pistol round (.380. 9mm, .40 .38, .357. magnum, .44 magnum )shot all the way through 3.5 inch hard drives from 20 feet. All rifle rounds (.223, 7.62X39, .308, 7.62X54R), except for .22 LR and magnum, shot through 3.5 inch hard drives from 25 yards and beyond.
Looks like I found the proper tools then. 😉
That is a sculpture worthy of any modern art gallery! You are right, old drives, printers and anything that might have data on it cannot be assured of being destroyed when it is sent off to recycling.
Thanks, Lavinia. When the recyclers wanted a heafty fee to take a large Xerox printer, I took it apart and we recycled it piece by piece. I got a lot of insights about how laser printers work taking that printer apart.
I never opend hard drives, now I had the chance to look into it 😉
I love your artwork you created with the magnets Timothy.
Love the repurposing of these parts, Tim.
Thanks, Bruce.
WOW!!!…. Now that is recycling at its best… Lovely sculptures… and an ingenious way of repurposing … xx
Thanks, Sue.
🙂
I love your creativity and resourcefulness, Tim! I too have a pile of old hard drives, hmmmm, I might steal your idea and do some steampunk sculptures!
Old hard drive parts would make great steam punk sculptures and mixed media pieces. Thanks, Tiffany.
I’m so glad you didn’t take them to the recycler! I love all those nuts n’ bolts inside these items. My favorite game as a child was to open up various objects -like radios, clocks etc- check out all the tiny pieces and try putting them back together! But you have made art out of them! Well done! I bet it was satisfying.
Putting it all back together is an art in itself. Thanks, Marina.
When I first saw the header photo, I thought it was made of hard drives!
I like the way the organization of your magnetic parts resemble critters: I saw some horses and a dog in there and some “others”. One time, when I took an old CRT to the Convenience Center to put in the electronic recycling bin, it slipped out of my hands and the glass screen shattered. It beat it outta there, fast.
The top one looks like a praying mantis to me. There are lots of shapes in that sculpture. Thanks, Susan.
How cool! I have some old devices that I keep thinking can be reused in some way, but haven’t been inspired to actually use the parts from the old devices to make something new. I did make some windchimes using old CDs but that’s about it. This is very insipring!
Hi Nicole. I didn’t show the spacer rings and spindles I put in a bag. Those will be great for creative people. One of our staff made earrings out of a couple of swing arms using paper clips for the posts to hang the swing arms from her ears. But the magnets are the most fun parts of the drives.
The sculptures are so neat! They kind of remind of Chappie from the movie Chappie!
It’s just fabulous how you are so creative!
Thanks, Becky.
Interesting, I might have to open up my stack and take a looksie inside. Been awhile since my college courses where we had to design platter writing algorithms for read performance and storage optimization – I do not miss those days ha. It gives me great pleasure to take them to the Intrigued range and aerate them as they say.
Writing those algorithms didn’t make your heart go plitter-platter? I use to take HDs to the range, but I don’t belong to the range these days. Can’t have a range in the village.
Oh, it pitter and plattered alright, trust me.
Hey Tim .. too clever! This is serious recycling …
Thanks, Julie.
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Thanks, Daina.
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