I fabricated my own Cadweld-type mold for making ground rod connections
while I was installing my tower about a year and a half ago, but I only
recently uploaded the description and pictures to my web site. It's an
easy procedure and with a little thought a mold could be made for just
about any configuration or purpose. Here's the link in case anyone
might be interested.
http://www.ab7e.com/exothermic/AB7E_Homebrew_Exothermic_Mold.html
At the time I even tried to make my own weld powder (thermite). It's
fundamentally a combination of copper oxide and aluminum power and the
formula was simple to figure out, but I couldn't find materials with the
right particle size. The stuff I found was all very fine powder and
while the mixture reacted, it did so too quickly and the result was more
like the old flash trays they used for taking photographs in the
1800's. If I could find an easy source of coarser powder I might try it
again sometime, but in reality you can usually find regular Cadweld weld
metal on eBay for the equivalent of one dollar per shot or less. I
always look for the largest containers I can (usually 200 grams) because
they usually are the cheapest per gram. I can typically get three shots
out of one 200 gram cylinder. Don't worry about running out of the
starter powder (which appears to be just the same formula with smaller
particle size like I played with anyway) ... 4th of July sparklers work
fine to fire off the regular Cadweld powder.
73,
Dave AB7E
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