Highend Designer Geekwear
Circuit boards may contain precious metals in the components as well as within the boards themselves. In most cases they are the best choice to efficiently conduct electricity. Computer motherboards and soundcards in particular have an extremely high amount of gold, copper and silver content. After the components are desoldered and removed from the motherboards they can be cleaned, hand warped, cut to size, finished in several different styles and even personalized. They can be left in thier original color and glossy finish, or hand sanded, textured and polished to reveal the intricate designs of the preciuos metals within. No two designs using this recycled material turn out identical.
Used motherboard prices have increased steadily with the larger number of businesses and individuals using them only for precuious metal recovery. Unfortunately, this process typically ends with the destruction of the boards. Finding used motherboards and soundboards allows me to create intricate precious metal art using recycled materials, but the materials are still costly (as I must outbid those who mine the precious metals and board components) and they require a labor intensive process to finish.
There are other artists who use other scrap low cost circuit boards in their work, however, I believe that the level of detail in the patterns and precious metal content of high quality motherboards and soundcards add significantly to their visual appeal and value. Basic circuit boards have low detail designs that contain mostly plastic. Motherboards and soundboards contain more precious metals, have highly detailed designs can come in various colors (such as: black, gold, red, blue, peacock, green, purple, brown etc). When the board is sanded and polished to reveal the precious metals, it loses its original luster and darkens as the lower layer of the board is exposed below. While this removes some of the bright circuit board coloration, it pays off in the increased contrast with the exposed precious metals. The choice of finish (glossy vs sanded) is strictly personal preference. On occasion I d a bit of both… I can hand scrape to expose a few of the board's precious metal shapes through as patterns while leaving glossy and colorful finish intact, but this is extremely difficult, precise and time consuming. It is typically done only on a small area and would certainly increase the cost. At the end of the process I cover most of my circuit board art with doaming jeweler's epoxy to protect it and enhance its beauty. Please take a look at some of my work! Items are typically available on etsy and in a few boutique art stores.