Re: Making a Toroid

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

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

In a message dated 8/31/01 9:57:35 AM Pacific Daylight Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com 
writes: 


>
> Hi Scott, 
>
> Thanks for the suggestions. Are you sure we are talking about the same 
> stuff? This is 
> a tuff aluminum and it's very rigid. If I just let it hang straight down it 
> won't expand of its own weight. Also, if I try to crush it a little as to 
> ovalize it, the stuff will just crack. It's 
> very strong in cross section. McMaster sells only the 2.5 ft length. I 
> looked around in our Lowes and I see nuthin like it. The unstretched 2.5 ft 
> will not make a circle. I experimented and found that the smallest diameter 
> toroid I can make without cutting the coil is around 19 inches which 
> required 
> an expanded length of around 3.5 ft. So what I'm gonna do is cut the 2.5 ft 
> coil into two pieces and expand each piece as far as needed in order to get 
> my 14 inch toroids. Then I plan on using two aluminum pie pans, one on the 
> top and one on 
> the bottom. The pie pans (Dutch apple and lemon harangue) will fit very 
> nicely within the minor diameter of the toroid. A hole thru the center will 
> fit the mounting stud with maybe 
> an aluminum spacer between the two pans so they don't squeeze together. 
> Do you have any ideas on how to join the two ends to keep sharp points to a 
> minimum? 
> John Freau says he uses a wooden plug and small nails which doesn't sound 
> bad. I think I will try to just burnish the edges and wrap them with duct 
> tape. We'll see what happens.    
>
> Thanks again for the suggestions. 
>
> Ralph Zekelman 

Ralph, 

You might try what I did with my large toroids made from corrugated plastic 
drain pipe.  I cut the ends so they align nicely and drilled small holes in 
each end, across from each other, maybe every 1.5".  Then I used lacing cord 
to tie them together and covered it with aluminum foil tape. 

Ed Sonderman