Wow, lot's of interest and good questions/suggestions.
Two things occur to me.
1. Why have such a long tube?(the wick below the tube will support itself, will it not?)
2. If you had a shorter tube you could bring the wire back up to the top plate and clamp it with the ground screw or wedge it in the wick hole.
just my
Good to see you are working on this CW, will keep my eyes open for your results.
1. I am using the bottom of the tank as a ground.
2. I am going to wrap the outside with SS mesh for an unoxidized wick. The original idea from Scubatadan was trying to eliminate oxidation and be easy to replace.
You would only need the bottom sealed wouldn't you? How about wax. If you get the plain old candles drip a drop or 2 in there. Or you could do a clay. I think the brand is fimo not toxic oven cure. I used to make all kinds of crap with that stuff when I was a young in. Interested to see if the mesh can wick enough. I actually have a tiny coil rolled for exactly the same purpose, I rolled 30awg around a needle. Need to add the NR. Can you solder the joint by melting the silver?
I could seal just the bottom for now but one issue folks are having with the wick inside glass tube is horrendous burnt tastes when condensation gets to the exposed coil. I wanted to encapsulate the coil so that it is completely isolated from all current issue causes (but of course I'm probably just introducing new ones...). I would love to figure out how they make the "Ready Wires" for ODY/Pene. I tried to solder some silver onto Kanthal and it always comes back off
If you figure that one out let me know as I have a terrible time with the twisting method (but always seem to get it eventually)
Why not just heat up the tube with your torch and then pinch the molten glass together? You'll need to get it pretty damn hot, but it's doable.
I tried on a couple test pieces and granted my torching skills are more geared towards BBQ, bondfires and fireworks but every time I tried the melted glass also severed the NR wires. I may try Nickel NR wire to see if it is a higher melting point instead of silver.
I believe the wick is going to wrap around the glass and not in it. The NR wire would have to be fed through the mesh somehow if he shortened the tube. In his current model it is using the bottom of the tank for the ground.
Yep, haven't figured out hoe to get the bottom wire back up to the top without touching mesh. I may try pulling it up through the fill hole instead but this was easier for prototyping.
If you seal in the coil completely I would think there would be pressure build up generated by the glowing coil producing heat and expansion/contraction of the coil. I think over time this would weaken the glass tube.
I though about this too. I could make a vacumm chamber out of a large pickle jar and a shop vac. It would be a pain ot the "a" to work that way but I think if the top was already sealed I could pretty easily stage a drop of goo to seal the bottom (in the jar) with a shish-ma-bob stick through the top. I think I may be able to create a little vacumm by simply heating the glass when I seal the second end. That way any internal air would already be at least partially expanded so may reduce any risk of it popping later.
Thanks for all the feedback everyone. I have no idea where this'll go. Really hoping someone with glass/manufacturing skills/capabilities will do the fully embedded version. Would be really cool to simply have a 1mm rod with a coil in it and just wrap mesh and go.
