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Old 2015-02-06, 10:49am
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Speedslug Speedslug is offline
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Join Date: Mar 21, 2009
Location: Winnebago, MN
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If you don't have a Mills Fleet Farm near by you could try using the carbon arc rods sold at welding shops although I think you may have to buy a box of some 2 dozen. Mine gave me a half dozen from a damaged box when I expressed interest in them.
Graphite is pure carbon. You can shave the copper cladding off the carbon arc rods with a razor and just keep shaving the carbon in to a powder to mix with your paint.

I was thinking that inexpensive nail polish could work as a paint substitute or maybe even good old Elmer's glue thinned enough and mixed with this carbon dust.

The trouble with open pine cones is that you will have lots of "fingers" but unless you can get your graphite paint up into the crevices the fingers are not electrically connected.

Some companies are using oil paint on the surface of a water bath to get the paint into all the nooks and crannies of unusually shaped objects.
Maybe spraying or poring some kind of lacquer or paint on a tub of water and then sprinkling a good amount of carbon/graphite dust on that would get enough of the paint and the graphite into all of the crevices to make an entire pinecone conductive.
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Last edited by Speedslug; 2015-02-12 at 4:30am.
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