So… I broke another blade today. I really need a bandsaw… oh, well. But the beauty of this project is that it can be done without power tools, just not as quickly or neatly. I hacked out a couple of rails from an aluminum busbar, sandwiched them between microscope slides for heat resistance, and sandwiched the resulting unit between acrylic sheets for impact resistance. The whole assembly was held together using a couple of binder clips, so it can be taken apart easily and serviced.
The rails were 3.5″ x 0.5″ x 0.125″ and placed 1/16″ apart. The microscope slides were 3″ x 1″ and just enough to cover the rails and let 0.5″ stick out for the electrical connections. The acrylic sheets were 3″ long and wider than the microscope slides; this makes handling the barrel safer, because no metal is exposed at the sides.
Now the only thing I’m worried about is unwanted capacitance forming between the metal binder clips and the rails. We’ll see how it goes.
Its time for pictures!
An advantage to using glass and clear acrylic is that the whole gap is visible… most of it, anyway. It’s great for viewing the plasma’s path. The exposed terminals at the bottom are for the alligator clips from the power supply.
The gap is taller than it’s wide. Apparently, this is a good thing.
