Making Metal Art from recycled PCBs - Part 1

M35: In this episode, I take on a new project - I want to transform the amazingly intricate art found in PCBs (printed circuit boards) and turn them into a metal sculpture. This is part 1, where I make silicone molds from a variety of PCBs I’ve saved over the years, including memory DIMMS and motherboards. I prepare the PCBs for moldmaking by plugging all holes with clay, strip off all the tall components and cut them to size on a bandsaw. Consider it a form of recycling - turning what was obsolete into something interesting and beautiful again. And since I didn’t even destroy the original PCBs, I can keep making more molds, or else process them to recover the scrap gold value. In Part 2 (coming soon), I will cast the wax positives (using my new silicone molds) and use them as raw textured sheets that I can bend and sculpt into artwork, wax welding the seams, and preparing for investment casting. This should be really fun! Be sure to subscribe to make sure you don’t miss it! Part 3 will cover techniques needed to turn a wax part into brass or copper (I haven’t decided which yet). You may have heard it called the “lost wax” process, or else “investment casting”. We have to sacrifice the wax sculpture in order to make the plaster investment mold. Then it’s time for fire and molten metal, poured into the mold, followed by the reveal of the cast part. And finally, I’ll do a bit of finishing, polishing, and mounting of the finished sculpture. Music Credit: Ligthning Bugs by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...) Artist: http://audionautix.com/