greeney2 wrote:See there you go again with the wrong conclusions. I'm right in the middle of an area of 2 million people in the San Fernando Valley. Somehow you would probably love being my neighbor, probably always needing something welded or your motorcycle fixed.
In the countryside one is always aware of one's neighbours.
In the cities one can easily be completely ignored.
I'm OK with the arc welder. I don't have the cash for a system which can give me better results with my level of skill.
A while back I tried welding with oxygen and hydrogen. It scared the willies out of me! But I found it great for glass. I made the gases with a homemade electrolyser. - I didn't separate the gases, and if the gas supply became erratic, the flashback occured I'd damn near wet my pants from the blast. - It could get incredibly hot. It went through tungsten like butter, and it would melt rocks, ceramic insulators and glass as soon as the flame nozzle got close to it. And it would automatically adjust itself to whatever material was in front of it, so I could weld nails to glass jars and weld copper to steel etc... . But anyway, as I said, I was very wary of it, and I couldn't make a flashback arrestor fast enough to catch it before it blew the top off my bubbler. The flame-speed is phenominal.
What I'd like is to figure out a way to enrich the oxygen so I can use a bit with my propane burner so I can do some brazing. - I know ... the best way to do it is to buy a set which has been properly designed. The times I've nearly blown something up or off suggests I might not be so lucky if I carry on the way I Am.
Something I've been meaning to ask someone, and you must be the ideal person:- The thing is that I've got a can of calcium carbide which I bought about eight years ago.
I thought I'd use it with a lamp. But I never got around to it. The can is pretty rusty, but the inside is wrapped in a plastic bag.
I'm quite worried about what might happen if air or condensation gets to it, as the reaction with water produces acetylene. What would you advise me to do with it? Or is it safe in that rusty tin. I put the whole tin in another plastic bag a year back because I was worried about it.
And how would I dispose of it safely?
I made an ozone generator tonight (it's 0600 and I've been working on it since 0200).
I had two hard-drive platters (platinum-coated) one on each side of an old CD, with spacers so the air (ozone) can go through. This was sandwiched between two identically-sized sheets of glass, and there was a bead of thin wood around the outside which was fixed with caulking.
It had an 'in' tube and an 'out' tube, and the 'in' tube was connected to an aquarium air pump, and I fed the outlet into a glass of iced water and bubbled the ozone through it to make it ozonated water.
It tastes like hydrogen peroxide, and I suppose that's what it is. I am recently interested in seeing if ozonated-water can be used as a skin wash to clear skin problems and blemishes and to see if drinking it makes me feel better in some way. - I expect I'll get bored with it soon enough and try something else for fun.
I connected my ozone-maker to an 18kV boiler oil-igniter, and with the lights off it is quite spectacular to watch the thousands of tiny arcs reflecting off the CD - which is sandwiched in the middle. - So if you like doing experimentsd then yes! We'd have a ball.
by mael » Fri Nov 06, 2009 12:54 pm 
