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Step 3Building your electrodes
I originaly intended to sodder my wire to the stainless steel. Go ahead and try if you like but it wont stick. So then I decided to drill and tap a hole in the pipe. I feel a clamp on connector would work better but I didn't have one. I did have a 1/4" bolt though. Wrap one wire around the bolt and screw it in tight. The bolt I used was very short and did not go through to the inside of the opposite side of the pipe. The screw in method I used probably saves more space than a clamp on.
-updates-
-Ok, so apparently regualr stainless steel does not work as an electrode. It lasted for 8 operational hours. People have said that 316L stainless will work better but I have my doubts. Instead I made them out of graphite. I give complete credit to hooloovoo33 for the suggestion in his instructable here( http://www.instructables.com/id/Separate-Hydrogen-and-Oxygen-from-Water-Through-El/ ). It is a very long and tedious prcoess the way I did it. I bought 2 jumbo sized kid's pencils(78 cents) and carved them down to the graphite core. I originally thought "I will just carve down one side and lift it out of the wood". WRONG. Pencil companys must use glue in their process becuase it dosnt come out easy. Even thin solitary pieces of wood clung to the graphite. What you can do is type in to google "buy graphite rod" and the machine shops that sell it will pop up(along with fishing poles). I found it as cheap as $5.86 for a single 1/2" by 10" rod, which would be enough when cut in half.
To connect the wire to the pencil lead I stripped back a long section of wire wrapped it around the lead twice and then twisted the wire back on itself and twisted like crazy with pliers. At this point I broke open the tube of sealant and dipped the end of the grapite with the wire in sealant. It gave me a great seal doing it that way rather than going over and over it with the tube's end. This was more a matter of frustration than technique. You need two conductors so do this twice.
After it dried I wrapped a big thick tye wrap around the top and bottom of each piece of graphite. Then wrap another tye wrap to hold them together. They should still be the width of a thick tye wrap apart. This is to allow the electrodes to be as close as possible without touching.
-updates-
-Ok, so apparently regualr stainless steel does not work as an electrode. It lasted for 8 operational hours. People have said that 316L stainless will work better but I have my doubts. Instead I made them out of graphite. I give complete credit to hooloovoo33 for the suggestion in his instructable here( http://www.instructables.com/id/Separate-Hydrogen-and-Oxygen-from-Water-Through-El/ ). It is a very long and tedious prcoess the way I did it. I bought 2 jumbo sized kid's pencils(78 cents) and carved them down to the graphite core. I originally thought "I will just carve down one side and lift it out of the wood". WRONG. Pencil companys must use glue in their process becuase it dosnt come out easy. Even thin solitary pieces of wood clung to the graphite. What you can do is type in to google "buy graphite rod" and the machine shops that sell it will pop up(along with fishing poles). I found it as cheap as $5.86 for a single 1/2" by 10" rod, which would be enough when cut in half.
To connect the wire to the pencil lead I stripped back a long section of wire wrapped it around the lead twice and then twisted the wire back on itself and twisted like crazy with pliers. At this point I broke open the tube of sealant and dipped the end of the grapite with the wire in sealant. It gave me a great seal doing it that way rather than going over and over it with the tube's end. This was more a matter of frustration than technique. You need two conductors so do this twice.
After it dried I wrapped a big thick tye wrap around the top and bottom of each piece of graphite. Then wrap another tye wrap to hold them together. They should still be the width of a thick tye wrap apart. This is to allow the electrodes to be as close as possible without touching.
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Your local high school mechanical drawing class or college bookstore may have them as well.