Thanks Gordy, that tutorial kept me busy through most of last night and all of Sunday, the roast did not get cooked!
Micro-coil coils touch yes, BUT they do not conduct across that contact "because of oxidation". Here, I read that micro-coils DO form an electrically continuous tube-like heating element. Which I"m not so sure I believe. Because if that were true, the "coil-tube" would actually have FAR LESS resistance than a coil would. Wuddinit?
so it is ok to squeeze the coils together and fire the battery at the same time?
> But the moment you burn it - actually, the moment it's exposed to air - the outer layer will oxidize. Everything does - even aluminum. The difference is that the aluminum ("aluminium" for you Brits) oxide is still silver, doesn't continue to "eat" through the Al like red rust will, and actually makes a protective layer.Not every conductor - and some of the oxides are conductive, such as silver oxide. If Kanthal oxidized, it would be useless in high temperature furnaces. Here is a quote from the Temco site: "Kanthal A-1 is a ferritic iron-chromium-aluminium alloy (FeCrAl alloy) rated for use at temperatures up to 1400°C (2550°F). The alloy has high resistivity and great oxidation resistance."When aluminum oxidizes (almost instantaneously when exposed to oxygen) it forms colorless Al2O3. If in natural form, it would be called sapphire or ruby. >BTW - speaking of oxides of iron: there are two kinds (that I know of - IANA chemist) (although pretty much every man I knew growing up was - Halliburton company town, you know): red rust, and blue-black "rust". I forget their technical names, "gamma-hematite" and "something else-hematite". Anyway, the blue-black version is what they put on guns. They probably do it chemically now, but Back In The Day, gun-bluing was achieved by boiling the parts in salt water, then rubbing it down with steel wool. Over and over and over.Well, red iron oxide and black iron oxide. The old guns were browned/browned (same chemicals, different temperatures) using a solution of potassium nitrate and sodium hydroxide. I have used both browning and bluing on black powder firearms that I have built.Sodium chloride would NOT have been used. It is too reactive and would severely pit/corrode the iron/steel.