Re: New bottle cap idea

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

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


>
> 1. The coating will be far, far too thin to be usable.  You need at 
> least several mils and are lucky to get even a few microns, with 
> corresponding high resistance and low thermal capacity. 



I figure that once the mirrored surface is created, then a person could either
silver or copper plate onto it to create a suitably thick coating. 

>
> 2. Even you got the silver deposited OK you would still have the problem 
> of making a connection to it of sufficiently large area to handle the 
> high peak currents. 



If done properly, the connection could be 'attached' to the coating during the
plating process described above.  I didn't say this would be too easy, but if
someone really wanted to go to the trouble,  it is certainly possible. 

>
> 3. You stand a good chance of a major explosion!!!  In the process you 
> can get silver fulminate, an excellent percussion explosive.  My cousin 
> (a post-doc chemistry major at Caltech), helped me silver my first 
> telescope mirror back in the late forties.  We thought we disposed of 
> all of the residue safely, but the next day had an explosion when he 
> dropped a beaker on the bench and hit the sponge with which the sink was 
> cleaned.  No eyes lost, fortunately...... 



The mirroring process in my old CRC (13th edition - newer ones don't include
this cool kind of stuff) actually warns of the danger of forming silver
fulminate and cautions the reader to dispose of the waste solutions.  Washing
out glassware after performing ANY procedure should be standard practice.  I
have done this a number of times without any problems, but safety should always
be top priority when performing any chemical process.  I reckon that goes for
any experiments such as, oh, Tesla coiling. 
Mike 

>
> Good luck, 
>
> Ed 
>
>