Re: The dowel of death - SAFETY

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Hollmike-at-aol-dot-com>

Hi Richard, 
    I have heard people mention this, but I don't think it actually absorbs 
water significantly except perhaps on the surface.  If it actually absorbed 
water, I doubt it would be very useful for plumbing purposes or the water 
would 'bleed' through the pipes after a while.  Water does not bead up and 
roll off pvc as it does with, say, teflon, so it probably is hydrophillic to 
some extent.  It might not hurt to put a 'Jesus stick' under a heat lamp for 
a while and then give it a coat of insulating varnish(or similar) to prevent 
any moisture from collecting on the surface.  Assuming the ground connection 
is reliable, the resistance of any water on the surface(assuming no salt is 
present which should be the case) would be very high and the current would go 
to ground throught the metal conductor rather that conducting down the pipe. 
  I don't use such a device myself.  If I wish to draw an arc to ground, I 
would set up some kind of stand to support the grounded 'target' and be away 
from it when operating a coil.   I once got just a hair too close to my 8 
inch coil and the output flashed up my arm.   Fortunately I was no where near 
grounded(second floor of my apt with carpeting and luckily no outlets or 
wiring in the walls very nearby), so I did not suffer any injury, but I did 
get a warm sensation from it and could 'feel' the current travel over the 
skin on my arm.  As I said, I think I was lucky and provided a high 
resistance path to ground,  and was a few feet beyond the end of the visible 
streamers so the air was not as conductive as it is with the ionized air of 
the streamers.  It was a good lesson for me to be more careful and stay a bit 
further away from my coil when operating it.   
Learned and lived, 
Mike 



>
> Isn't PVC hydrophilic?  I'm not a plastics guy though.  Maybe some one can 
> fill 
> us in.  Doesn't current path favor dielectric interfaces?