Credit card companies such as Chase and American Express have been adding metal to their cards as a gimmick. I had a few old credit cards that have metal piece inside them. Sometimes when you get a new one, the card company sends you an envelope to return the old ones in for recycling, or they suggest you use tin snips to destroy them. I found a better use.
In woodworking, many times in order to get a nice smooth surface, you might use a card scraper, which is just a thin steel card with sharp edges. You hold it roughly perpendicular to the surface of the wood and draw along the surface perpendicular to the flat side of the card. This shaves a very thin layer off the top of the wood.
You could buy some card scrapers, but since I had these extra credit cards, I tried to make some myself. I attempted a few different methods to remove the plastic form both sides of the cards. Firstly, went in brute force and pulled the plastic off both sides. As the edges of these cards are sharp without the plastic, I gave myself a pretty good gash in my thumb. This is not a great method.
For the second card, I attempted to melt the plastic with acetone…. which didn’t fully work and made a nasty, stinky mess.
The third attempt, I went in the garage and used a little torch to heat up the plastic on the card. Once I saw that it could work, I stopped. I recommend doing this completely outside with the garage door shut. Of course use some pliers to hold the card. This method could work well, but just be sure not to heat the metal until it changes color. You can then clean off the melted plastic blobs with a flame retardant sacrificial rag.
The end results work great! I also punched out the tiny SIM card in mine, but you can leave it in. It is potted with clear epoxy so you can see the chip and gold connection wires on the back side if you leave it in which is pretty cool.
