Looking for Ni-chrome wire

K

Kevin the grey

Joined
Aug 26, 2005
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Ni-chrome wire is used to make hot wire knives to cut styrofoam and other materials . It is usually sold in spools that would give me enough for several lifetimes . I am only looking for about three feet . Also does anyone know if it comes in different guages ?
 
Making an electric khukuri?

What a great idea. :thumbup:


Mike

Hm, there's a litle bit of it in every Estes Rocket Engine pack- the igniters. Neat stuff.
 
Ad Astra said:
Making an electric khukuri?

What a great idea. :thumbup:


Mike
Click to expand...
I made one and had the " Convex Mafia " at my door a half hour later .
Its to make a feather burner .
No that is not a chicken that ate a lot of chili . L:O:L
 
Check McMaster-Carr. They have everything. Modeled themselves off of Santa Claus, they did.
 
I used to have some at work. I'll check tomorrow. We got ours from Mcmaster-carr www.mcmaster.com and yes, it comes in different gauges from .0031" to .0641". Search for nichrome on their site. Smallest spool is 1/8 pound.
Steve
 
Yeah Steve that is what I want . Its just way more than I need . I have one piece on my feather burner that is kinked up too much to burn a clean shape .
I don,t kmow what diameter it is . I will try looking at a guitar string and see if it is close to one .
 
Kevin,
I have some .016" and some .020" and will send it to you. I have your address at home, or you can email it to me at sferguson2 at triad.rr.com and I'll post it today.

Steve
 
Wow ,
I think either of those will be just thicker than what I have which is ideal .
Just to tell you I once used steel piano wire which heated up fine and then burnt the transformer . I discovered that steel holds its heat much longer than nichrome . Can we say toasted fingers ? L:O:L Thanks a bunch .
 
The larger the wire, the less resistance. The less resistance, the more current it will pull. Is the voltage on the transformer adjustable?

Steve
 
Unfortunately It is not adjustable . Home made burners usually use model train power supplys . As I worked in alarms I had access to many different types of non adjustable ones . The wire in the instructions I had was .025 piano wire . The ordinairy alarm supplys just blew immediately . I went to a used electronics store and picked up commodore 64 power supplys for next to nothing . I got 3 feet of nichrome wire at a local model rocket store . (They have no more) THe set up worked great . If you like the smell of burning feathers . L:O:L

I tried reading resistance on my used up wire and got a reading that floated all over the place . IT might be the meter as its been hard used on construction sites . It may be that the current used to read the resistance makes the wire change resistance .

It is my hope that because it is a computer power supply that it is regulated a bit better and that it will suffice to handle a slightly higher current draw . I have a few more of them so its no biggie if I burn one .
 
Kevin the grey said:
I have one piece on my feather burner that is kinked up too much to burn a clean shape .
Click to expand...

Kevin if I may ask what sort of feathers are you burning and what for? If you can't answer me in a public place you have my email if you can talk about it.
When we trim feathers we generally use masking tape and a good set of really sharp shears or scissors. If we're making a Peyote Fan or other artifact that uses decorative feathers we use a really good set of pinking shears.
The trick is to not leave the masking tape on too long so that it's dayumed nigh impossible to remove.
It could be that a feather burner would actually be better for us.
 
Yvsa ,
a feather burner is used to do pretty much what a scissor/tape set-up will do . . In my case I introduce two curves with two apexes (sp) . I then create a helix by following the curve of the arrow shaft . The two curves in the feather do not have the exact same radius or height so it gives a dual propeller or pinwheel effect .

This gives a lot of drag and spin for the amount of surface area . If I make these fletches large enough they hiss going through the air . These are definitely not hunting arrows . They do correct errors in form quickly . A rapidly spinning arrow is more stable by smoothing out eccentricities .

I enjoy testing fletches and making different weight , length and material arrows fly the same . My daughter had aluminum and wood arrows that weighed slightly differently and didn,t have the same flex or spine . I tweaked them so they would impact the same at 21 yards which is their maximum distance before they start to dive . She made the winning shot in a soccer game with the arrow having just enough energy to push the ball over the goal line . In other words they were as precise as could be out to the total expenditure of their energy . She was very proud as she only gets to practice once every two weeks .

The other advantage of a burner is speed and duplication .
Other than differences in feather plume quality and angle every fletch would be the same . They are easy to build . It is best to use an adjustable transformer like a model train power supply . That way you adjust it to the exact current you need to heat the wire . I used to see the power supplys at flea markets . Now that I want one I never see them . If I could get hold of an adjustable supply it would be my pleasure to make you one . Unfortunately with ordinairy supplys so much monkeying around must be done that I could not offer such a poorly made gift .
 
Thanks for clearing that up for me Kevin. I had forgotten about your arrowsmithing.:o
What kind of feathers do you use for fletching? Now that they're pretty easy to get a hold of I would use wild turkey feathers for fletching.
There are tales that some ndns used Eagle feathers for their war arrows but I don't know how true that is, but it just doesn't sound right as the Eagle was/is a venerated bird.
I think peafowl feathers would also be good as well as goose.
Didn't the English and other folks from that part of the world use goose feathers?

Since I started dancing in the Arena I think of feathers being used for fans and wearing instead of other uses like fletching.:o ;)
 
Yvsa I collected a couple of hundred board feet of exotic wood flooring . Anything from Ipe to you name it . I traded it for a couple of hundred dyed turkey feathers . Wild turkey feathers are even better due to their bars and different colors . I have not got the knack of processing the quill into a useable shape . There are jigs for it . Right now I am concentrating on making lumber into shafts by hand splitting and scraping . I have hundreds of blanks of what may be a kind of mahogany which is incredibly straight grained .

Is a Pea hen a gueani (sp) fowl ? Do the males have a little feather that hangs over their head like a decoration on a ladies hat ? They may be just big enough . Another thing about wild turkey feathers is that they have not had their natural oils stripped away for dying (sp) They are much more water resistant .

I have pics of a few arrows and a couple of other items . Everything I do my computer balks at the idea . No U:S:B: port ? No prob I get them put on a C:D: . My darn computer says my monitor has to be set to 24 bit true color with more pixels . I set it to that and of course the puter looks like an artists pallet . It may be that I need driver software for an I:B:M: 8518 . It will get done .Just when is anyones guess .
 
Kevin,
I mailed your wire today.

We used to have machines that hot-cut synthetic fiber material. All we used for a power source was a 120/12 volt transformer, with a dimmer switch on the input (120volt) side. Just a dimmer like you would use in your home. I don't recall the size of the transformers, but they were maybe 200-500 va (volt amps). I suspect that we've still got some around the shop, but they weigh about 5 pounds each and might be a little pricey to ship to Canada.

Steve
 
No worries . My burner works pretty good . I like the fact that I made do without the varistor . I tried a dimmer on the 120 side of my supplys . They wouldn,t function . It may be a transformer would have better results .

I have seen them made with straight 120 and a dimmer . No low voltage . It looks dangerous to me . if you touch the wrong compoent or the wire breaks and touches a hand it could get unpleasant . Thanks again for the wire .
 
Wait a minute . 500 VA ? Thats more or less 500 watts . You could cook the whole chicken with that . No wonder it weighs 5 pounds
 
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