trimming finger cards

What do yall use for trimming gold fingers of the finger cards? Just looking for ideas. Tried tin snips, but didnt get a clean cut. Kinda jagged and crooked. Thinking of using my late fathers table saw, as I should get a clean cut.



What do yall use? Yes Im ocd and it was bugging me my finger card had a crooked cut..lol. I wanted a nice straight edge.

There was just a post recently on this, I've never cut any myself however someone mentioned to try a scroll saw.

I tried a scroll saw and it worked good, someone else suggested a band saw but the scroll saw was cheaper on craigslist.

paper cutter with safety bar removed i can do pretty quick and keep my fingers and cut clean and close ..

About how many pounds of finger cards yield a pound of fingers? Just ballpark

I don't have a paper cutter and my work environment does not allow nor would I want PCB particles getting everywhere. The way I do it is with a razor edge and short flat pliers. Score one side twice (some cards you only need to do it once, usually a lighter shade of green) where you want it to break, then snap it off with the pliers. Don't try to break it off in one yank, work your way up the length of the finger with "gentle" bends until it's ready to give way. I get really clean cuts this way, and since I got a vise it makes it much easier and less likely to cut myself
At first it's kinda slow, but (especially if you have a vise) you get much faster with practice. The blades stay sharp for a while with pcb but you do need to switch occasionally. Last time I had a trimming session I had 22 lbs and it took me about 90 mins to do the whole lot, and I was doing it quite casually. I got about 380ish grams of extremely close cut (can barely see green on most except for a rare few where I slipped with the razor a bit) fingers from the 22 lbs, but most of them were pretty old and had the super long connectors, and some were from servers/risers so were thicker. I imagine it would take a lot more of the newer PCI cards to get the same amount... I seem to remember reading 32ish lbs per lb of fingers?
I think a paper cutter is the way to go though, you could rip right through them once you get good at it. Might not be quite as close a cut, though... cant quite remember how thick those blades are?
Hope that helps.

Originally Posted by LoginR

I don't have a paper cutter and my work environment does not allow nor would I want PCB particles getting everywhere. The way I do it is with a razor edge and short flat pliers. Score one side twice (some cards you only need to do it once, usually a lighter shade of green) where you want it to break, then snap it off with the pliers. Don't try to break it off in one yank, work your way up the length of the finger with "gentle" bends until it's ready to give way. I get really clean cuts this way, and since I got a vise it makes it much easier and less likely to cut myself
At first it's kinda slow, but (especially if you have a vise) you get much faster with practice.

if you'll look around tool sales and flea markets you might find a wide jaw vice grips that would speed your method. They're used in metal work etc and the jaws are about 3" wide, the head might remind one of a hammer head shark

I was asking about a scroll saw the other night but I don't know if it would be worth it or not. Most people say not to cut the fingers off, you'll lose money in the long run. I would not want to invest the money in a scroll saw only to lose money on the finger boards. I'll post back here after crunchung the numbers that Loginr posted above.

Holy crap, I was just using a pair of those at work (carpentry, working on a roof at the moment) today, bending sheet to make custom ridge caps. The thought of using them for fingers didn't even cross my mind I'll have to buy a pair soon. Thanks!

OK, so here's the nubers I came up with using 32lbs of gold finger boards = 1lbs of gold fingers. Also using E-wasted prices. 32lbs of gold finger boards @ 4.40#= 140.80 After ctting the fingers off you 31# of boards down graded to 3.45#-106.95. 1lbs of gold fingers is 75.00 so 75.00+106.95=179.95 a driffrance of +39.15. Now here's the problem, how many finger boards to a pound? This is anopen ended question because some boards are bigger than others, but lets say it takes 3 boards to make a pound, that would be 96 boards. how long would it take to cut the fingers off of 96 boards. I think I'll sell the boards with the fingers on and spend my time doing other things, but to each his owne.

Originally Posted by waredu

about how many pounds of finger cards yield a pound of fingers? Just ballpark

just trimed 90 lbs of cards for 1.93lbs

I would sell the larger finger boards as is and trim the fingers off the small ones like network cards. Your not going to make anything downgrading the heavy cards.

I used a tile cutter, this works well and the water cooling means the blades lat much longer and no dust particles.

Originally Posted by ITBoneyard

I trim them all, but only because I recover/refine the gold plating myself. It's an extra $25/lb for if/when TSHTF.
Edit: It is never a good idea to create dusts to retrieve the fingers using power tools, but if you do, use a proper mask and cleanup procedures. I just use tin snips to trim them close; no mess, no fuss !

LOL if TSHTF your gonna have to refine those fingers into bullets, who ever has the most is going to win. Back to my real question,is that what you get per lb of fingers after all costs($100/lb)?

I think the price of a fingerless board is good considering what's left needs a higher form of refinement then the fingers do.
pretty much anyone can refine fingers to get the gold so the market to sell them is much greater then the boards.
definately worth keeping in my opinion, take up little space and the bulk of the money is still made on the boards.

recycling e-waste is relatively new and I think it's gonna be the super business of the 21st century, just 6 years ago people forget
that gold was just $400 oz, so just 6 years ago fingers were worth just $18 lb, today, just 6 years later gold is $1700 oz and fingers are $75 lb, can you see what's happening? sure sell your boards, they take up space but fingers are prime investment and yeah in a SHTF scenario, gold could well go 10 times the price, and I hear the argument that if gold went to $10,000oz then a loaf of bread will be $30, well gold rose 300% past 6 years, i didn't see bread rising 300%.