Some interesting ideas being passed around, cool. I wonder whether this fellow had funds to do either smelting or crushing into powder then blending together if he really had to assemble this from 74 different elements.

Then again where could one buy a rod made of pure Tantalum or Tungsten for that matter and use them straight without any processing.

Either way he could've coated the rods with something to keep them from chipping thus we cannot exclude smelting option. And I sincerely doubt he was in Space with 0 g and vacuum doing some tricks of meshing materials together into a seamless mix.

Bryan, what about Tesla and Rife, are you suggesting something to do with HV and interferometry?