Part 23

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We head back over to the school house where the others are working on the brushes and magnet holders of the stator, the non rotating part of the motor. Arriving, I see them sitting around the table, Thallion writing notes, Silvra fiddling with the stator, and Lena looking bored.

“How goes it?” I ask, unsure of the low level of motion.

“Magnets fit perfectly, and Thallion is currently working on a way to hold the brushes, but we cannot compact the charcoal hard enough to make it a solid.” Silvra replies, slightly dejected.

“That’s a start at least. Eldrin and I were able to make the wire. Oh, that’s another thing, we will need to insulate this wire, so it does not short out. That was done using some very advanced materials before, but let me read and see what was initially used.”

Pulling out my phone, I open offline Wikipedia again and see that numerous sources of wire insulation were used until the invention of plastics. Reading through the page on Magnet Wire I see that cotton, paper, or silk were used, often impregnated with resin or beeswax.”

“Do the trees here produce very sticky sap, often sticking to the tree?

“Yes, but it tastes awful!” Lena states pithily.

“I don’t want to eat it, but boiling it, and running the wire through it should produce a very thin resistant layer over the entire length. Can you-”

“No problem at all! Finally something to do!” Lena exclaims, running out the door.

“Right, as for the charcoal, have you contained it and hit it with a hammer?”

“That is the primary method we have utilized to experiment, however, all of our attempts fail”

“Le’ me try tha’ then,” Eldrin states, grabbing the small metal container, and a hammer. He heads over to the hearth, and pounds the plunger into the small container filled with charcoal.

“There we go. Li’le puck o’ charcoal” He announces, extracting it from the mold.

I grab it, and try and put my thumb through it. Sure enough, it snaps in half and turns to dust.

“This won’t do. We need something stronger. A finer powder perhaps? Maybe mix it with some iron powder and then bake it?”

“Wha’ woul’ tha do? Why woul’ya make a subs’ance worse by con’amina’in’ i’?

“It’s not contamination if it is done on purpose. If heated just right, the metal will melt and glue the piece together. A process known as sintering. It is not as strong as forging it, but for many cases is strong enough.”

“Facina’in’. We’ll talk more ‘bou’ me’allurgy anotha time. I’ll go try tha’”

“First, let me try and make a few of the unbaked ones.”

I take the hammer, feeling its weight, it may be equal to a standard handyman hammer, not even a roofing one.

“On second thought, do you have a heavier hammer?”

“Ya, bu’ for bus’in rocks”

“That sounds perfect!”

Eldrin leaves to go get the hammer and some iron powder from his forge, leaving me with Silvra and Thallion.

“How are the brush holders going?” I ask

“Confounded little things are difficult to restrain, best I’ve come up with are just wrapping them with leather and pushing them in! But that won’t stop them from walking out”

“Does the word “spring” translate?”

“Yes, but I don’t know how a carriage or leaf spring would help in this case?” Thallion retorts.

“What about a coil spring?”

“I ‘ave a few of ‘em, nee’ a few?” Eldrin interrupts, carrying what I can best describe as a small sledge hammer.

“Yes!” I respond.

“Are not those some of the most expensive components you make?”

“Aye, bu’ I think I’ll be doin’ business for a while with ya, so migh’ well consider par’ o’ this my accep’ance to the projec’”

“Very well” Thallion responds.

While they are talking, I take the iron powder and charcoal and dump them in a mortar and pestle and grind them until very fine and uniform. As I grind, the volume of the charcoal dramatically reduces, as I break down the foam like trees into dust. I add more charcoal to compensate. Dumping a bit of this into the mold, I place the plunger above it and lightly swing the hammer down on it a few times, to get it seated. Standing up, I take a strong demolition stance and swing the hammer down from above my head into the plunger on the mold sitting on the hearth.

The mold compresses, and goes flying, I steady the hammer as it bounces off the mold and catch it before it hits the hearth, hoping to not crack that too.

“There it is!” Silvra exclaims, quickly scrambling to pick up the mold.

“It’s stuck!” She cries, trying to pull the plunger out.

“Le’ me try” Eldrin responds.

After a few minutes, he to states that it is stuck, passing it to me.

Wiggling the plunger back and forth for a few minutes, I manage to unjam it, and get the compressed slug out.

“Right, that’s one to go be heated, bury it in the coals so it does not burn, and heat until it changes colour. I’ll bring the other over when it is ready” I state to Eldrin, who nods back and heads out with the slug.

Shortly after Eldrin heads out, Lena returns.

“Here’s the sap. Gross to handle, I am going to try and wash this stuff off my hands”

Taking the sap, I see it is very much like pine resin, placing it in a pot, I put it over the fire with the lid on so it begins to soften and eventually boil.

“Now I just need a spool on a stick.”

Silvra looks up, “I have those at my place, well not the combo, but the parts.”

She runs off, eager to finally get this going.

Returning with the parts, I quickly rig up a small submergable pulley so I can run the wire under the boiling resin without sticking my fingers in it.

“Silvra, I need your help. I am going to uncoil the copper wire, and I want you to recoil it, I need to hold the wire under the boiling resin to coat it properly.”

“O-ok. Just don’t rush.”

“It needs to go slow anyway as it has to cool and harden before landing on the spool you hold. In fact, this should result in the safest copper you can handle.”

I dip one end of the copper wire in the resin, and fish it out gingerly with the pulley, pulling on the wire, I manage to thread it over the spool in the resin, and pass the now coated wire end to Silvra.

“Just draw slow, you are setting the speed. There is no rush.”

She pulls slowly, carefully, and eventually we get the entire spool of wire rewound without any injuries. She puts it on the table, only for Thallion to immediately pick it up, examine it, and place it directly in the palm of his hand

“What the hell are you doing!” Silvra exclaims, swatting the spool out of his hand.

“It worked! It’s completely coated and we are safe from copper burns! It even still looks like copper!” Thallion replies, clearly not hearing what Silvra said.

‘Could you have come up with a better way to test that?!” She remarks.

“Well, yes, but actually no, due to speed and timing and-”

“You just wanted to find out right away.”

“...yes” Thallion responds sheepishly.

“I go’ the par’s sin’ered. Er, uh, ‘rea’ed, tha’s be’’er.”

“Here, catch!” Thallion shouts, lobbing the spool at Eldrin

“Wha’?!” Eldrin remarks, dropping the slugs on the floor, and hot potato catching the spool.

“Wha’?! I--I’ no longa burns! The ‘rea’men’ worked!” He states, looking at the spool of copper in the palm of his hand.

“Now, let’s make some history.” I state, being bored with ‘pass the spool’.

Wrapping the wire in a loop around the long axis of the fat bit of a rod, we quickly make the rotor component. Unsure of how much magnet wire to use, I wrap in about two thirds of what we made, leaving the rest for future use. Attaching the wires to the commutator ring, and separating the ring from the shaft with a piece of wood goes quickly.

“Now to magnetize the magnets. I’ll need to use my phone power for this.” Taking the rest of the magnet wire, I form a pile of loops around the soon-to-be magnet such that the field goes through it like a plate. Unplugging my phone from the translator, I plug in the power adapter I made earlier, and hope I have enough windings to not melt everything.

Nothing visible happens, but that is normal. I give it a minute, and then unplug it.

I repeat the process on the other coil but this time with the field pointing the other way, so I get a north south pair when they both point inward.

Placing the magnets inside the core, they stick slightly to the side walls of it, so they are at least partly magnetised.

“Hopefully this is enough.”

I slide the rotor into the stator, line up the contactors with the brush holes, and place the brushes in the holes, wrapped in some cloth and with a spring behind them, pushing on the plugs that cover the holes.

“Well, here goes nothing” I state, as I grab the rotor shaft, ready to spin it.