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The satellite dish. A little closer to completion, with masking tape holding down just-glued mirrors at the top and on the left side.

I needed a few more mirrors to finish. I was trying to buy and cut just enough mirrors without going over. I bought two closet door mirrors (eight square feet) at Target, and two boxes of square mirrors (12 square feet) at Home Depot.

Please note that the branch hanging over the dish on the right only actually hangs over about 6 inches. The rest of that green is a reflection of the tree itself.

Without any more mirrors cut for gluing, I got to try another test. A stake. I dunked it in my safety bucket to give it a little surface water. This would allow me to could check to see how fast water would vaporize at the focal point.

It worked really well! The water heated up and flew off of the stake as steam, then the stake itself began to smoke and caught fire in about 20 seconds.

http://one.revver.com/find/video/cockerham

The dish upright.

The main safety feature of the dish is that it is really hard to get to the focal point. Unfortunately, being high in the air, and six feet from the edge of the dish made it difficult to photograph.

Tilted all the way to the ground, facing West.

Here is a tip for would-be solar extortionists: Make sure to install a cloaking device on your parabola of doom.

Finishing up the last section of the dish one evening after work. I was gluing on the final mirrors, and didn't need to bother to remove the blue tarp all of the way.

Complete!

Ah! So much work had gone into it, and it was magnificent! Beautiful and Powerful.

I used all of my mirrors, including some of the dodgy ones, and about 30 halfsies.

Finally, it was finished, and there was nothing left but to start lining up the victims!

The weekend was coming up again, when I would have a few hours each day to dangle targets at the mighty Light Sharpener.

I rummaged through the refridgerator and the garage, looking for items which might respond to superheating with an appropriate enthousiasm.

I definitely wanted to see the Light Sharpener vs. a big block of ice. For an added element of danger, I poured in a bottle of soy sauce. It would soon take the form of deadly BLACK ICE!

http://one.revver.com/find/video/cockerham

Please continue reading page 16 of the light sharpener.

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