Digging up spot.
(Un)dead projects
Welding with “spot”
Or, Carrying on with carrion.
I own twenty acres of largely useless land in the high desert. On it I recently found the carcass of a very dead coyote. Suddenly finding that my lifelong love of reuse had taken a new and frankly darker turn I took it’s head. Resisting merely cleaning and mounting for display, I wanted to actually find a use for it.
I was working on another project, an ATOMIC HYDROGEN BLOWTORCH! (isn’t that a great name?) here’s more on the topic: http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/AtomicH/atomicH.html
This is a blowtorch that can reach over 3700c. That is hotter than the surface of some stars and way over that of ox-acetylene or any mig/tig combo I’ve ever heard of.
Problems are that I need a source of hydrogen, (wood lye, aluminium,water) A source of high voltage (microwave oven transformer) ,Tungsten electrodes (spark plugs or welding rods) and a frame that will hold it all as at high voltages metal frames can become antennas of zappy death and at 3700c wood and plastic go “woosh” and no longer keep the bits that are essential to keep apart, apart.
At this point we look to calcium carbonate, the primary constituent of bone, for some answers.
First, it’s non conductive. Second, while not fireproof, it is fire resistant and requires much higher temperatures to burn. Placing the electrodes a distance in front of the jaws and running the gas line down it’s mouth should allow for a tool that can range from spot welding to horrific thermal devastation, depending on voltage,amperage,gas and electrodes used.
The fact that it’ll look like a bone dragon and potentially vaporize steel is a mere happy coincidence, I assure you.
For those who want more on the spot welder aspects of the project, You might start here: http://www.instructables.com/id/MOT-spot-welder/
Mine will look quite different (heavier gauge wiring, a dead coyote skull, no back plane, transformer as a separate unit and eventually a gas line) but it does show the jawlike assembly.
But first I need to clean off the dead ick. I am doing so by simmering the skull over a waste vegetable oil lamp in a wood lye solution.
I extracted the lye by filtering water through white ashes, Spots flesh is slowly turning into zombie dog soap!
This will take some time. After that, spot welder, then add gas feed, then up the voltage to at least 300volts AC to strike an arc in a hydrogen plume. At that point if successful, maniacal laughter.