From Scratch

Carbon Arc electrode making is difficult to accomplish. It becomes the go or no-go deciding point as to workability for any one attempting to use Carbon Arc lighting. I consider my attempts at this to be a failure. I tried baking several types of mixture of ground charcoal and liquid material that should turn to carbon if heated. I tried individually at separate times oil, sugar, and wax as the binding agent. I had read that pitch was used as a binder at some point in the past.In my testing the mixture was then heated over an electric stove burner. I could get it to harden but not conduct electricity. It also was too porous. It needed compressing and heating at the same time. It needed to be hotter than my red hot electric stove would make. Also the hotter it got the more it would burn and turn to ash. It needed to be in a closed environment under pressure.

Next I was going to try to use 50% ground up charcoal and 50% lamp black (soot from chimney or incomplete burning), and 10% clay and water or ground grain (flower) and water. Heat it in one end of a .5" SS tube pack in more from other end (use a packing rod) as heat dries and fuses it into a rod that comes out the other end. I never made this test. It became beyond my current skills. From studying patent info I doubt I could heat it enough to work. Other possible components that would turn to carbon but were not tested are: Wax, fat, sap, pitch, tar, bug-juice, ground up coal, oil, milk, eggs, gelatin, cotton strands mixed in for reinforcing, or other carbon producing material.

Offered by Mike.