Re: Tool Steel's

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Vardan <vardan01@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Hi,

Prolly NOT!!!

They are probably nickle plated...  At RF frequencies, all metals 
present a "skin depth" or area on the surface where they conduct, or 
don't, depending on the properties of the metal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_depth

The issue is, nickle is a "bad one"...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permeability_%28electromagnetism%29

Nickle is "125" while copper is "6.4e-6"!!  Ie. copper conducts and 
nickle is almost an insulator...  I have watched 5000 amp RF 
assemblies with mixed nickle and copper things...  The copper runs 
cool and the nickle crap burns off in flames!!!

So the "metals" are in issue...  I just pulled the nickle plated 
screws off my SISG and replaced them with brass ;-))  So you have to 
know and look up the metal's permeability before getting too carried away...

Gold is my favorite since it is low in permeability and has a high 
thermal conductance to carry off heat.  I have seen it do wonderful 
things 8-D  But bad for arcs since it burns up in the high current 
density flames...

In general, copper is our metal of choice...  Aluminum has terrible 
oxidation depths and aluminum oxide is a very good "insulator" :-p

Silver is very cool since it's oxide (actually a sulfide layer) is 
"still" very conductive :-)))

Cheers,

        Terry




At 09:09 PM 8/14/2006, you wrote:
> Would a bunch of deep spark plug sockets be better in a spark gap 
> compared to copper?  I'm not talking the cheap chrome plated stuff. 
> I mean good quality sockets. You wouldn't think it would oxidize 
> very easily like copper.