RE: Tungsten gap erosion

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>

Hi Mike,

Yes.  Welding rods with a red band are all 2% thorium.  Some of the other
alloys have varying color bands but red seems to be consistent for thorium.
 Green seems to be almost always pure or non radioactive.  Apparently, the
non radioactive types are specified for nuclear reactor installations since
they don't want to have any "extra" radiation around so they are pretty
"tight" about how they are marked...

Cheers,

	Terry


At 10:44 AM 8/13/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>I bought some 1/8 inch tungsten welding rod off ebay a while back. Since the
>seller didn't indicate whether it was 2% thoriated and it didn't come in the
>original packaging I was wondering if I could tell by the red dye on the tip
>of the rods which type I had. 
>
>Does red mean 2% thoriated?
>
>
>Michael Doyle - Senior Lab Technician
>Cherry Electrical Products
>11200 88th Ave, P.O. Box 581913
>Pleasant Prairie, WI  53158-0913
>Phone: (414) 942-6627
>Fax: (414) 942-6334
>EMAIL: mdoyle-at-cherrycorp-dot-com <mdoyle-at-cherrycorp-dot-com> 
>http://www.cherrycorp-dot-com/ <http://www.cherrycorp-dot-com/> 
>
>
>	-----Original Message-----
>	From:	Tesla list [SMTP:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
>	Sent:	Saturday, August 11, 2001 1:15 PM
>	To:	tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
>	Subject:	Re: Tungsten gap erosion
>
>	Original poster: "Michael Rhodes by way of Terry Fritz
><twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <rhodes-at-fnrf.science.cmu.ac.th>
>
>	Thanks for this comment.  I live in south east asia and things are
>	a little tricky to get or to identify.  I was in our machine shop 
>	selecting the tungsten rod I am going to use in my spark gap and
>	he showed me some in green and some in red.  The machinist
>	didn't know what the difference was nor I.  Now I know which
>	one to pick.
>
>	> 
>	> Hi Michael,
>	> 
>	> You can easily get the pure tungsten (non-radioactive) variety
>from any
>	> welding shop.  They tend to come in green packages...
>	> 
>	> Cheers,
>	> 
>	> Terry
>
>
>
>	
>