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Re: Cutting Tungsten (fwd)





---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 08:43:41 -0800
From: Jim Lux <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net>
To: Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Subject: Re: Cutting Tungsten  (fwd)


> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sun, 29 Mar 1998 23:12:43 -0500 (EST)
> From: richard hull <rhull-at-richmond.infi-dot-net>
> To: Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
> Subject: Re: Cutting Tungsten 
> 
> 
> >
> >Guys,
> 
> I have used my variable speed dremel (old style) with a diamond wheel
about
> 1.5" in diameter.  Fed with a water trickler to saw up 1/4" to .020
diameter
> Tungsten rod for years.
> 
> Richard Hull, TCBOR
> 

The shop manager at one of my clients just got some literature from a local
company (in Agoura Hills, CA) that makes diamond grit grinding machines for
sharpening tungsten electrodes for welding. Also a whole bunch of stuff on
the optimum grinding pattern (lengthwise, not across),

and,  what I found interesting, a discussion of the possible implications
of thorium dust. They sell cerium and lanthanum doped tungsten rods (as
opposed to the more traditional thorium), claiming that it reduces the
radiation hazard from inhaling the dust when grinding the thoriated rods. 
I don't know enough to make a reasonable evaluation of their claims: for
all I know the chemical toxicity from Ce and La could be more than the
radiological problem from the Th.

So, just a thought, you might want to make sure you wear a suitable
respirator when grinding/cutting those welding electrodes.