Magnetic Quenching
If you go to this page:
<http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/6160/, a little more than halfway down, there is a drawing of a plasma shock wave
generator that would, if used without the plasma chamber, could possibly be used
as a self-magnetic quenching gap. Even though we would have a LC (add an
inductor to the drawing) circuit, the magnetic fields would always be in
opposition causing the arc to be pushed away from the conductor. I would
imagine some good insulator (mica comes to mind) would be needed to allow the
conductor to be in close proximity to the gap without shorting the circuit.
There is a problem with the idea. The arc current is what creates the field, and
the field is proportional to the current, so when the field is maximum (not much
with a single wire) the current is maximum too.
That idea is just the XVIII century "thunder house" experiment, without help of
explosives. A HUGE discharge is necessary to make a barely perceptible force (I
tried). Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz
Just yesterday, we had an induction coil running at a high frequency with a spark gap of about 1.5 cm. Known to be the HV freak in the class, the teacher let me do the demo of just creating sparks. I managed to get about 3" sparks. :) I then closed the gap right down, and with an arc running through the gap, placed a bar magnet beside the arc. There was a very distinct bend in the arc, and if the magnet polarity was reversed, the arc bent the other way. I may be able to get some photo's of this, but no promises. So, yes I believe that a magnet has an effect on an arc. However, there is no effect on a spark. I also tried this; just demonstrate the large amount of ionized air in the gap.
Richard Hull has performed this exercise and the results are
on one or more of his series of VHS tapes, contact Richard for copies ($20.00
per tape, or thereabouts).