Fusor IV is made from to 304 stainless steel hemispheres 6" in diamter and and .060" thick. (these can be purchased very cheaply from Braun & co. - see the sources listing in some of the site pointers.)
The flanges are very expensive 8" Conflat UHV rated vacuum copmponents. (they are about $300 for the pair and a set of 10 copper gaskets. - Duniway Stockroom or Kurt Lesker.)
The hemispheres were drilled and prepared in my milling machine. The flanges and ports were made from standard vacuum fittings (Duniway). The insultaor is a special insulator I found at a hamfest. I had offered a few for sale a while back on this list, but they are all sold now. Insulators which are vacuum rated can be purchased from Kurt Lesker and company similar to mine for about $400 each.
I TIG welded all the components together with my TIG welding system here in my lab.
The grids are all spot welded with my Raytheon impulse spot welder and the support posts silver soldered with my oxy-acetylene torch setup.
Everything I do is based on hamfest acquired parts, mostly, but every now and then I am forced to pay full list, government prices as in the case of the big 8" conflats.
All the welding equipment, lathe and milling machine was purchased over the many past years, and skills acquired by the doing.
Planning the port positioning and where to drill is a nightmare and requires long planning based on the setup and mounting arrangements. You have to think ahead several levels deep.
Small flanges and gas fittings are chosen to match the vacuum components that you have on hand and outboard from the fusor. I prefer the Kwik-fittings in the 25mm range (KF-25) for medium vacuum camber connections and vacuum gauge ports. The gas handling must be Swagelock as their stuff is vacuum rated and an industry standard albeit expensive.
Richard Hull
Created on Tuesday, February 13, 2001 5:23 PM EDT by Richard Hull