ORIGINAL: Tired Old Man
Coronabob,
I've used the copper type paint on gps equipmnt and understood what you were talking about all too well.
Albatross,
My original point was that c/f would not make an effective rf shield, which you finally stated yourself above. If you go back a little ways in time you can look up how the c/f structure of the Beech Starship required a separate metal cage to meet lightning strike requirements.
As far as the Jacobs Ladder was concerned, since wood is definately NOT conductive, what other path did the electricity from the ladder follow to toss my body a painful distance other than the graphite/carbon pencil lead? Let's not forget that carbon fiber is derived from graphite, right?
Yes the pencil lead the high electrostatic discharge, graphite is the preferred path for the electricity to flow as oppose to wood.
In order to equalize the highly unbalanced electric charges just about any path may be good with enough voltage differential.
The Jacobs ladder may use as much as 12 K Volts or more to work, so the unbalanced charges are just ready to follow any path.
[link=http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-build-a-Five-Foot-Tall-Jacob_s-ladder/]Jacobs Ladder experiment[/link]
Yes, CF & Graphite are varieties of the same element. Will allow electric charges to follow? Yes but limited, inefficiently, this low conductivity will show up in form of heat.
We use carbon to manufacture regular resistors, they can transport electrons (current, Amps, I) however at high cost (Watts, heat, etc) due to its inherent high resistance (ohms).