If you can find (or draw your own) pure polystyrene filament, that
should work very well. Someone suggested optical fiber - this should
work very well too, in the right conditions. You'd want bare glass
fiber, with no protective plastic cladding, then thoroughly clean and
treat it with a silicone oil like Dow 200. Glass isn't really all that
great an insulator (in an extremely high impedance context), due to
surface effects, so a silicone treatment helps a lot.
Besides optical fiber form, just regular fibers of glass should be
available, in different sizes and alloys. It may be hard to find it in
small quantities though.
PTFE should also be available in fiber form - somewhere - since it's
used for making meshes, filters, separators, and screens for chemical
process applications. Someone must produce the raw fiber stock that goes
into these sorts of things. Again, finding it in small quantities could
be problematic. It's best to use virgin PTFE if you go this route.
Ed
On 7/22/2019 11:16 AM, Dr. David Kirkby wrote:
I have been discussing with some friends about the Oxford Bell with a view
to making one. One guy can not believe a battery can last 175 years.
Anyway, I was wondering what would make a good insulator to suspend the
ball. I thought of nylon fishing like, but can anyone think of a better
insulator? Obviously PTFE is a good insulator, but it’s not exactly
flexible. Nor is sapphire.
Dave
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