[TowerTalk] Homebrew Exothermic Mold

[Mark Robinson]

Interesting. Thank you for sharing this.  Useful information


I have had good luck with Harris Stay Silv 15 and my oxy acetylene torch.


Mark N1UK



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Gilbert" <xdavid at cis-broadband.com>
To: "towertalk" <towertalk at contesting.com>
Sent: Saturday, 21 August, 2010 12:54 PM
Subject: [TowerTalk] Homebrew Exothermic Mold


> 
> 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
> _______________________________________________
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> TowerTalk mailing list
> TowerTalk at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk