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RE: The dowel of death



Original poster: "Loudner, Godfrey by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <gloudner-at-SINTE.EDU>

Right! As a woodworker of sorts, the moisture content of wood is always a
concern, especially in the case of furniture. In important projects, I use a
hot box to drive the moisture content down to 5%. There is a special
electrical meter by which one can measure the moisture content of wood.
After a dowel is down to 5% moisture content, I would finish the dowel to
help maintain the dryness. Of course no finish prevents the wood from
reabsorbing moisture, it only slows the process down. A dowel that has been
dried out and finished cannot be considered safe for all time. I have
touched, without accidents, the HV terminals of 60 cycle transformers with
dried out wooden dowels. But I don't feel entirely safe, and maybe I should
not take a chance. Regarding high frequency currents, I feel that it is
risky business to probe a tesla coil with a wooden dowel, even if the
moisture content is down to 2%. 

Godfrey Loudner

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Tesla list [SMTP:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
> Sent:	Friday, September 07, 2001 9:11 AM
> To:	tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> Subject:	Re: The dowel of death
> 
> Original poster: "Michael Rhodes by way of Terry Fritz
> <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <rhodes-at-fnrf.science.cmu.ac.th>
> 
> Since the dowel rod is made of wood and a good absorber
> of moisture, my guess is the charge is finding it's way to
> you via the internal moisture?
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
> To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
> Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 11:26 AM
> Subject: The dowel of death
> 
> 
> > Original poster: "Garry Freemyer by way of Terry Fritz
> <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <garry-at-ndfc-dot-com>
> >
> > Well, Long time ago, I made a rod to draw off sparks from my TC using a
> > wooden dowel with a brass doorknob attached to the end, and coaxial
> cable
> to
> > ground the knob. Now with such an arrangement, you would think it would
> be
> > relatively safe, but nope.
> >
> > I was operating the coil from a good distance and I got several good
> zaps
> > off the wooden dowel, even when I wasn't drawing sparks to it.
> >
> > I turned on the coil and got several good zaps off the rod, before the
> > freeze from astonishment at the shocks off the wooden dowel prompted me
> to
> > drop the rod with a shuddering shake of the hand.
> >
> > My only guess was the coaxial cable was just the right length, to act as
> a
> > kind of coil of it's own and instead of going down into the ground which
> was
> > a huge metal water pipe under ground, it decided to travel down the
> dowel
> > and into me, or maybe there is a carbon track inside the dowel.
> >
> > This rod was used very little.
> >
> > Either way, it's a case for choosing plastic over a wooden dowel for a
> > "Jesus Stick"
> >
> >
> >
> 
>