On 11/22/13 6:06 AM, jhowson4@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Greg,
> I would stay away from the galvanized rod if I were you.
> If you vaporize the zinc coating and happen to breath it, its just as bad or worse as the stainless. Zinc poisioning can kill you infact.
> Or so they said in my tig welding class last year.
They said that in your class, but it's not accurate. See my other post
for the actual details.
There have been deaths as presumed after effects of zinc fume exposure
from welding, but the connection is unclear. Your lungs get irritated,
you get pneumonia, you die, in some case.. OTOH, there could be
confounding factors. A lot of people who work in occupations with dust,
smoke, and fumes also smoke (or used to), so the epidemiology is tough.
If you already have pulmonary disease from smoking, did the zinc fumes
just aggravate it.
> Since I presume a hospital trip is not on your agenda.
> I would recomend either tungsten or brass.
Brass has it's own set of problems. Copper and Tin fumes aren't
particularly healthy either, and, of course, "machineable" brass often
has some lead content.
I think the amount of zinc on a galvanized steel electrode is so small
that it will all burn off in the first few minutes of operation, and
since you're probably not sitting there a few inches away breathing
deeply of the pretty white and yellow fumes, it's just not an issue.
Typical zinc galvanizing is about 500 grams/square meter. Say you've
got 10 square centimeters of electrode surface.. that's 0.001 square
meters, so 500 mg of zinc, total. dilute the fumes from that down with
100 cubic meters (3500 cubic feet) of air and you're doing just fine.
https://www.galvanizeit.org/inspection-course/galvanizing-standards/astm-a-123-for-structural-steel-products/
It's probably better than using cad plated carriage bolts for a spark
gap<grin>
Steel isn't a great material for electrodes for other reasons, but hey,
it's cheap, it works, and it's easy to machine.
> I sell tungsten of any diameter and cut it too for reasonable prices. (I know a guy)
> Contact off list if your interested.
>
> Cheers,
> John "Jay" Howson IV
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