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Re: Toroid made easy
Original poster: "Scott Hanson" <huil888@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Gary -
Is this a proposal for a conceptual process to construct a toroid,
or is this a description of a process that you have actually used to
construct a toroid?
If you have actually used this process to construct an "inflated"
steel toroid, would it be possible to post photos of the toroid as it
undergoes the various fabrication steps, or at least of the finished item?
I'm just having a hard time visualizing the "pancake" of .040" thick
steel disks being "blown up like a balloon" and yielding a
near-toroidal shape, regardless of how hot the material is.
Regards,
Scott Hanson
----- Original Message ----- From: "Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 5:38 PM
Subject: Toroid made easy
Original poster: gary350@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
I cut 2 pieces of .040" flat steel into a donut shape. Donut is 20"
outside diameter with a 6" diameter hole. Metal plates are welded
together along the outside and inside edge only. A very small pipe
fitting is welded to the surface of 1 sheet of metal near the
center. A 5 lb. bag of charcoal is ignited and given enough time to
turn the 2 metal plates red hot. Air is slowly blown into the
fitting and the red hot metal is blown up like a balloon. The flat
metal will blow up into a toroid shape it is sorta like blowing up a
car tire innertube. Let it cool. Grind the welds smooth and reweld
if needed to make it smooth. You can also do the same thing to make
a sphere. I did the same thing with two 20" circles no donut shape
this time it made a very nice sphere. It only takes a few minutes
for the metal to turn red hot so the charcoal is basically
wasted. It would be good to make about a dozen toroid and sphere
parts get them all welded together and heat them red hot one by one
it would not be so wasteful on charcoal. I have not tried any
really large ones yet but I see no reason someone couldn't cut out
some 48" donuts shapes to make a large toroid. When the metal blows
up like a balloon the outside diameter gets smaller. You can get a
98% accurate idea of the actual size by bending a sheet of paper
into a radius to see how large your finished balloon shape toroid will be.
Gary Weaver