Charles patton,

Both the dry cell battery rod (carbon) source, and the
welding carbon rod approachs sound good as possible
diamagnetic material.  I didn't know welding carbon
rods were often coated with copper, this could be 
useful in damping in itself, as is, for other schemes,  Presuming either source yields the right stuff, of course.  Wonderful i
dea to check on...thanks Charles.

As for laying the rods side to side, I doubt it would
work (I haven't tried that), but the carbon/graphite
I've seen barely floats above the graphite, which has
only a weak field.  I'am guessing, that the hills and
valley in such an arrangement, could also tilt the
floating neo, and snag all over the place. Of course,
one could try grinding, filing down 1/2 the surface for a 
smooth "platform/surface", but with the frail nature of
carbon, it could be very difficult to do.

Another approach might be chopping up the carbon into thin
sections and jaming them together vertically, but they
would need to be smoothed I'am sure at the "floating
surface".  What effect all the openings would have,
compared to a solid surface is unknown; particularly
for the top layer nearest the overhead magnet.  Plugging
the carbon pieces gingerly into a drill press head,
turning on, and using a hand held file could smooth
the surface/s also.

************

Actually the 68 pieces that were mentioned earlier,
showed a wide variation in diamagnetic properties.
Probably a indication of the manufacturer using any
old carbon to make their product.  Whether welding
manufacturers are more stringent; I wouldn't know. 
This was one piece that had clear markings for a
certain mfg, and production # on 58 of the 68 pieces.

I should also mention in my carbon brush collecting,
the majority of the total, were no good.  The 
assortment I got on saturday, only 2 out of the odd
15 varietys, were diamagnetic.  The "68" mentioned,
were collected on Monday, of one of the two known
"good ones", that luckily they had a quanity on.

Again, thanks for the suggestions...they could pan
out very well.

Thanks, Meredith Lamb


 


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