The simple X-ray Machine

An Inexpensive X-ray Machine
Summary:
From an old radio tube, some copper wire, and other inexpensive materials — total cost: roughly $20 — you can construct an X-ray machine that will make good pictures through an inch of wood. SAFETY MEASURES THAT YOU MUST OBSERVE. Notes on Röntgen's invention. Highlights of X-ray theory.
Harry Simons of 118 Windsor Street, Kearny, N.J., is a lonely amateur scientist. “For 23 years,” he writes, “I have been dabbling in the X-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum without once coming across a fellow amateur. Thousands of enthusiasts can be found in the region of radio waves, of light and of gamma rays. But none of them come to play in my back yard. If the prospect of exploring fresh electromagnetic territory sounds interesting to any of these amateurs, I can promise good hunting in the 10-8-centimeter region — and for a total investment of less than $20.”




As a lure Simons offers the collection of radiographs reproduced  225, 226, 227 and 228. He takes special pride in the one which shows screws embedded in an inch-thick block of wood. This shot resulted from his first experiment with X-rays and illustrates what can happen when a fellow with a sharp eye follows a happy hunch.

During a rainy weekend back in 1933 Simons was fiddling with an Oudin coil. This almost forgotten gadget, a close relative of the Tesla coil, can step up low voltages 1,000 times or more. High voltage generated in this way has an advantage for the amateur experimenter in that it is relatively harmless. In the course of stepping up the voltage the Oudin coil also increases the frequency of the current, so that it tends to flow through the skin and away from vital organs such as the heart.




“My original Oudin coil,” Simons recalls, “was part of an ultraviolet lamp with which I tested mineral specimens for fluorescence. For no particular reason I decided to replace the evacuated quartz bulb, which produced the ultraviolet rays, with an old radio tube of the 01 type. The glass envelope of these tubes is coated inside with a silvery film of evaporated magnesium — the so-called “getter” which helps clear the tube of stray gas during the evacuation process and absorbs any that may be liberated by the glass walls or metal parts after the seal-off. I simply held the 01 in my hand and touched its prongs to the high-voltage terminal of the coil.” Instead of filling with a lavender glow, like the quartz bulb, the inside of the tube remained dark but the glass in contact with the magnesium lighted with a pale greenish fluorescence that reminded me of the glow emitted by old style X-ray tubes of the gas type. Was the radio tube producing X-rays?

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http://www.noah.org/science/x-ray/stong/