My first attempt was the coaster in the lower middle position. It was assembled using a piece of duct tape to hold the CPUs together from the front, and a ring of black tape around the edge, and pouring it full of RTV Silicone. The silicone was pressed flat with a piece of waxed paper. This worked really well, but the RTVisnt quite as tough as it could be, as once the duct tape was removed, the CPUs tended to “flop” apart.

The second iteration was the AMD-based CPUs (With the metal heat spreaders) seen at the top right of the image. These were assembled using hot-glue instead of RVT, and, instead of backing the whole coaster, I just glued the pins on the adjacent edges. These were an improvement over the RTV style for a one basic reason: Less flexible connections, since the hot-glue cools to be mostly solid. Additionally, hot-glue is a TON cheaper than RTV, and mostly self-leveling. The downside is that hot-glue tends to shrink, so these two coasters are “cupped” a bit, with the top side being “longer” than the pin side.

This cupping problem was rectified in the MK III model, with the inclusion of green felt backing. The backing provided a flat surface and allowed me to anchor the CPUs “to” it, rather than to each other. This resulted in a much stronger, flatter coaster than either of the previous designs.

Unfortunately, at some point, I think these coasters were discarded. This is a fairly old project, and once I got married and got “style” and whatnot, a stack of CPUs on the coffee / kitchen table was no longer all that desirable. If I was so inclined, this would not be hard to recreate.