Harper's Electricity Book for BoysAdams, Joseph H. (Joseph Henry)
Science
Harper's Electricity Book for Boys
Adams, Joseph H. (Joseph Henry)
Electricity -- Juvenile literature
Obtain a bluestone battery jar, and after heating it to drive all
moisture from the surface, give it a coat of shellac inside and out.
With tin-foil, set with shellac, cover the bottom and inside of the jar
for two-thirds of its height from the bottom, as shown in Fig. 11. Cover
the outside and bottom in a similar manner, and the same height from
the bottom, and provide a cork, or wooden cap, for the top. If a large,
flat cork cannot be had, then make a stopper by cutting two circular
pieces of wood, each half an inch thick, the inner one to fit snugly
within the jar, the other to lap over the edges a quarter of an inch all
around. Fasten these pieces together with glue, as shown at Fig. 13, and
give them several good coats of shellac. Make a small hole at the middle
of this cap and pass a quarter-inch rod through it, leaving six inches
above and below the cap. To the top of the rod solder a brass ball. At
the foot a piece of brass chain is to be made fast, so that several
links of it rest on the tin-foil at the bottom of the jar.
To charge a jar from the Wimshurst machine, stand the jar on a
glass-legged stool, and connect a copper wire between one of the
overhead balls on the machine and the ball at the top of the rod in the
stopper of the jar. Make another wire fast to the other ball at the top
of the machine, and place it under the jar so that the tin-foil on the
bottom touches it. By operating the machine the jar is charged.
To discharge the jar make a [T]-yoke, as shown at Fig. 14, by nailing a
brass rod fast to a wooden handle and soldering brass knobs, or
hammering a lead bullet, on the ends of the rod. Hold one knob against
the top knob of the jar and bring the other near the foil coating at the
outside, when a spark will jump from the foil to the knob with a loud
snap.
A Glass-legged Stool
One of the most useful accessories in playing with frictional
electricity will be a glass-legged stool. A stool with glass feet is
perhaps too expensive for a boy to purchase, but one may be made at
little or no cost from a piece of stout plank, four glass telegraph
line-insulators, and the wooden screw-pins on which they rest when
attached to a pole.
[Illustration: FIG. 11]
[Illustration: FIG. 13]
[Illustration: FIG. 14]
[Illustration: FIG. 15]
[Illustration: FIG. 16]
The general plan of the stool is shown at Fig. 15, and the top measures
twelve by fifteen by two inches. Under each corner a screw-pin is made
fast by boring a hole in the wood and setting the pin in glue. The pins
are cut at the top, as shown in Fig. 16, and when they are set in place
the glass insulators may be screwed on. The wood-work should be given a
few coats of shellac to lend it a good appearance and help to insulate
it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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