Re: This Hobby's Expensive - Tosh! No,my good man, it isn't!

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "Paul B. Brodie" <pbbrodie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Dave,
You are just TOOO much!!! I really enjoyed this one!
Paul Brodie
Still Think Positive (on the half wave)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <<mailto:tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <<mailto:tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2005 10:05 AM
Subject: Re: This Hobby's Expensive - Tosh! No,my good man, it isn't!

> Original poster: <mailto:Davetracer@xxxxxxx>Davetracer@xxxxxxx
>
> In a message dated 4/14/2005 8:36:48 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time,
> <mailto:tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>tesla@xxxxxxxxxx writes:
> > Original poster: "Paul B. Brodie"
> > <<mailto:pbbrodie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>pbbrodie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >
> > All,
> > Jeez guys, give me a break. I was just being a little
> > jealous and kidding
> > about "deep pockets." I never dreamed I would get flamed
> > for joking around.
> > Paul Brodie
> > Think Positive
> >
>
>     I don't know what all the fuss is about, really. I only invest in
> materials for my Coils based off sound engineering science and EE practice.
> I economize when possible. I have used WinTesla and TeslaJava, but I find
> their interface a bit tricky. And Java is slow, let's face it. I am
> surprised how long it takes to crunch the numbers on the computer I have
> here; the only thing else I have seen able to slow this puppy down is, of
> course, Windows.
>
>     I wanted a decent winding for my secondary coil, so I bought up some
> silver bars, had them smelted, pulled into #26 size and insulated. I wound
> 670 turns on a ruby rod I had laying around from some project or other. The
> spark gap was at first a problem because the 24kt gold kept melting off
> those gold points I embedded into the buillion bricks. (You'd think the
> Swiss could put out a better temperature tolerant brick!) But I finally had
> to go to iridium and platinum on the spark gap points just to get them to,
> y'know, look right. Mounted the whole thing on an onyx table. Everyone says
> its tacky but I think it was nice to wind the primary on top of a pattern
> of emeralds, rubies, and diamonds. They reflect the sparks real nice! Gives
> the whole thing a warm glow.
>
>      I too had the common "exploding rotary gap" problem. I asked
> Lockheed's Skunk Works to help me, and they recommended titanium. It's a
> bit tricky to work with (brittle!) but now I have a rotary gap that is good
> to a hundred thousand RPM or so. It's a bit noisy when I light off the
> SR-71 jet turbine to spin it up, but Tesla Coils are always noisy, what's
> the fuss? And it's not like I don't throttle back after it's spun up!
> People are so ornery!
>
>     I too had toroid problems. After mucking about with many things, I
> decided to "go pro".
>
>     I finally just said the heck with it and had a casting foundry do the
> toroid in gold, because it's such a nice conductor. The trouble was the
> bozos gave me a thin casting, not a solid toroid! Oh, well, it was just as
> well ... the solid one weighed a bit much, and I have to admit it's just in
> use as a doorstop now. My poor butler sprained his back, in fact.
>
>           I have a "pole pig", who is named "James", who really is a nice
> guy, and is available 24/7 after I put in a call to the CEO of Xcel and
> reminded him who his biggest stockholder was. James is only about 170 lbs
> so I don't know if "Pig" really describes him. It was right nice of Xcel to
> string some of those tall towers, you know, that hold the 3 big wires on
> each side?, to my house.
>
>      'Course the buzzing and humming of the substation keeps ol' Yeller up
> nights a worryin'.
>
>
>     Grins,
>
>     Dave Small
>     Baron of Denver
>
>     Think Positive (for half the sine wave)
>
>
>
>
>