New toys at work

I've been getting started on some new types of high voltage work. In the past, I've done some lead cable work, but nothing like what I'll be doing soon at NASA, for Call Henry. I get to play with new toys! This is a solder pot. It's filled with molten solder that we used to tin the spun copper wiping sleeve of the termination. When I look at that, I think of Jearl Walker's The Flying Circus of Physics. When I was in high school, we watched a video of Jearl Walker explaining certain facts of physics, and demonstrating them. In one, he dipped his finger in water, then poked it in a pot of molten lead. He did the same thing with a cannister of liquid nitrogen. He was explaining how some people can walk across hot coals, barefoot. The intense heat causes the water to vaporize, forming a thin insulating layer between the molten lead, or hot coals and the person's skin. I don't remember how it worked with the liquid nitrogen, but it was similar. I bet Mr. Dria would be proud that I was actually paying attention way back then!

This is a sectionalizer box. Later, I'll post a picture of the insides. The cool thing is that I'll be terminating a cable installed in a pothead into one of these soon.

Here, I'm holding a stress cone that had been installed in one of the same type of terminations that we had to tin earlier. I don't know when we'll actually do those terminations, but I'm looking forward to it.