The rimstar.org builder whose two drum replications are described in The Hamel 45 Gallon Drum on Rimstar: A Builder's Two Replication Attempts and the Admission That They Do Not Match Hamel's Design also kept a companion page recording what David Hamel said about his original 45 gallon drum (the "45GD"). It is the closest thing in the dossier to a construction specification taken from Hamel himself. It records visits to Hamel's home on 7 August 1999, 23 October 1999 and 29 June 2000, plus phone calls on 13 February 2000 and 8 May 2000. The page gives the notes twice, once grouped by component and once by date. Most of it is Hamel's answers to a builder's questions. The only things the builder measured were the dimensions of some magnets, together with an informal resistance check of their material; Hamel handed these magnets over and said they came from his drum.
The visits and what was on site
A mutual acquaintance took the builder to Hamel's home. On that first August 1999 trip there was little time for drum details, because introductions took up much of the visit. Even so, Hamel examined the partly built replica the builder had brought and a drawing based closely on Bob Thomas's, and he showed another person's drawing that he said was wrong. He was also building his large craft (see Hamel Flying Saucer (HFS)), which the builder thought closely matched descriptions by Dan La Rochelle and Jean-Louis Naudin. Hamel agreed that the notes could be posted, but said people should wait for Bob Thomas's book and its drawings. The later visits show the craft taking shape. By October 1999 its second cone sat on the first and work on the third had begun. By June 2000 the base cone stood on a stand outdoors, the two middle cones were close to done, and Hamel was working on the rings for the rejection magnets.
The cones, as Hamel described them
- Number. Three cones. Asked whether two would do, Hamel said no, because three are needed for what he called the isotope line. The account does not explain what that term means.
- Shape and fit. All three cones have the same diameter, and a closed top on the upper cone is acceptable. Each cone sits halfway down the one beneath it. Hamel told the builder any other arrangement was wrong.
- Suspension. Each cone is held up by repulsion between its rim magnets and a ring of magnets on the drum. It barely touches the cone below, or the oscillator in the case of the lowest cone.
- Construction. Each cone used two skins: a full-height outer skin and an inner skin shaped to set the halfway seating. There was no internal frame. The skins were riveted to a bicycle rim with the spokes removed, and the bottom point was formed from the skin itself rather than from a nail.
- Function. Hamel said the skins move and torque the air, so that air, normally unseen, becomes visible as plasma. The builder took this as the meaning of a phrase Hamel used about the invisible becoming visible.
Magnets, polarity and spacing
Rim magnets. Hamel had no single magnet that fitted his rims, so he stacked about three rectangular magnets (1" x 3/4" x 5/32") under one ring magnet (outer diameter 1 1/16", inner diameter 3/8", thickness 7/32") and taped the stacks in place. The count is approximate because Hamel demonstrated the stacking on a rim the builder had brought, not on one of his own.
Top rejection magnets. Hamel gave the builder three identical ring magnets, two of them duct-taped together to act as one. They measured 7 7/32" outer diameter, 2 15/16" inner diameter and 3/4" high. In the May 2000 call Hamel had given 6" and 4", which the builder later took to be rough figures. Hamel denied a rumour that the top magnet was set in cement inside a container. He said he only filled the ring's hole with cement to hold the rod used to lower it.
Polarity. Like poles face each other at every level. Hamel listed them as North to North for the top magnets, South to South for the top cone, North to North for the middle cone and South to South for the bottom cone, with the oscillator's magnets in attraction. In August 1999, in what the builder called an offhand reply, he had said the Bob Thomas drawing's reversal of polarity for the middle cone was unnecessary. The list he gave in October does alternate between cones, and the account does not resolve the inconsistency.
Gap and motion. At rest the gap between rim and ring magnets was about 1/4 inch, and the wobble about 1/16 inch. Hamel said the cones do not rotate, only wobble, and that the oscillator, three balls in a triangle with an attracting central magnet, barely moves.
The drum and running it
According to Hamel, the drum had no holes and no air gap under the cover, and starting it required nothing more than bolting on the lid. The repelling ring was an aluminium bar bent into a circle. He told the builder to mount it on three vertical wooden strips spaced 120 degrees apart, not against the drum wall, warning that otherwise the builder would be electrocuted. The builder could not tell whether that warning came from Hamel's own experience. Hamel said he put no liquid in the cones. He put water in the drum to watch the waves it made. He suggested standing the drum on rubber or a tyre so that it could vibrate more freely, and putting temperature and pressure gauges inside with view ports to read them. Since he also said his drum had no holes, the original may well have had no such instruments, but the account does not say so directly. He also said that a magnetic viewing card held over a running gap would show a third field between the two magnet lines.
Where Hamel's answers conflict
The notes record several answers that changed between conversations:
- Rim material. In February 2000 Hamel said he used ordinary bicycle rims, not aluminium. In June he said they were aluminium, so as not to disturb the field. In a follow-up call he first agreed when asked whether he had used steel rims, then said aluminium when asked specifically about the drum that exploded. Later, questioned by the builder and Dan LaRochelle together, he said steel.
- Water ballast. Hamel said he put nothing in his cones, yet he suggested adding water to make the builder's cones heavy enough. The builder recalls that Pierre Sinclair had said Hamel did exactly that.
- Oscillator magnet. In August 1999 Hamel said the central magnet was not needed. In October he said his own had one.
What the builder tested
The builder checked the magnets' material with a rule-of-thumb method rather than a laboratory analysis: sanding a 1 inch strip, cleaning it with acetone and reading its resistance with a multimeter. By the page's heuristic, roughly 10 to 200 kΩ means barium ferrite, and above 0.5 MΩ (often an open circuit) means strontium ferrite. The small rim magnets read as an open circuit, which the builder classed as strontium ferrite. The large top magnets read 193.25 kΩ, fluctuating between 190 and 205 kΩ, which the builder classed as barium ferrite; that range sits at the upper edge of the stated barium band. So the builder's resistance readings place the supplied magnets among strontium and barium ferrites. That these were the magnets from the original drum rests on Hamel's word.
What this record does and does not establish
The page preserves a detailed, dated account of how Hamel described his drum. It also records the dimensions of magnets that Hamel said came from that drum, and an informal multimeter check of their material; their provenance is not independently documented. It does not establish that the drum ever produced plasma, a third field, an isotope line or any force. No output was measured, and the drum itself is not documented on the page beyond Hamel's own descriptions. His shifting answers on rims, ballast and the oscillator mean the specification is uncertain even as testimony. On the wider record of failed drum builds, see Hamel Claims vs. Evidence: The Gravitomagnetic Drive, Forty Failed Replications and the Absence of Measurement and Gravitomagnetic Drive Claim.
Source notes & attribution
- https://rimstar.org/sdprop/haml45gd/h45gdavd/h45gdavd.htm