@Irv I have a pretty decent maintenance background. I don't know exactly what kind of charge your looking at but windings at each end connected in circuit then discharged to a neutral might be your safest bet. Small gauge copper would work.

You can always thermocoat with a truckbed liner to insulate if you looking at a very low oh crap kind of discharge. might even try the flexseal or plastidip for a rubber coating. Make sure you sand the shine off your pvc.

If you have a electroplating facility around, like a company that makes car bumpers, you could have it chromed. then discharge back to a neutral.

29 gauge roll steel is easy to work with if you have your heart set on a metal coating.

I have never heard of a paint that metal coats, only coats metal. 

Thats easy then. light braided copper wire run the length of the pipe and then sent to a neutral or earth ground. like grounding lights on a trailer. trust me, I get shocked a lot..lmao

Irv said
Reason for topic is that I was concerned that unprotected pvc tube would attract dust if it developed a static charge.  Now I just read that fishing rod builders often hang pieces of plexiglass on thread after rubbing them for several minutes with silk cloth to create static.  

In my youth, I worked at a ski area as a “snow maker.”  The air compressor was an antique two piston machine having a central open winding motor with a diameter of about 12 feet (primary piston was 5 feet round and the second stage was 3 feet round).  Knife switches mounted on slate.  No idea what voltage, but we had to start it at night on order of the power company.  I was walking behind someone one night and watched as plasma flung him across room.  I stood in one spot and removed gloves and socks and walked on all fours to get to him while obtaining maximum earth ground (to this day I don’t know if I did the correct thing but it worked.  I was later told it would have been safer to hop across room on one leg).  He was stunned but otherwise not injured. It was like a scene out a ghost buster movie.  

We used to get a spray for discharging computer boards, because static build up kills. I wonder if that would work for your project? Never heard that about the plexiglass, that's neat. Now that I know it's about dust, that's an easy fix.

Ionizer. An Ionizer operates by sending out electrically charged ions into the air that bond with harmful impurities. Once a bond is made, these particles become too heavy to stay in the air. Combine it with a hepa filter and you have a dust free environment. 100$ on amazon. Cheaper if you shop around or look on overstock.com.

I have seen the big arcs, plasma arcs, take people down. Lightning strikes against cranes, dry dock ships, etc. and since the steel acts a s a battery it is extremely dangerous. Glad you made it through that experience Irv. Better lucky than good, or dead.

My old friend wolfram. I would go with the tig welder because that is what I am familiar with but it seems excessive. If I were making a bow rap out of tungsten as in wire form, I would either find a size smaller roundstock, wind it there, solder it in, then slip it over the bow and use the hot violin glue to hold it in place.

If you want to go straight to the bow for that form fitted look and have that antique look, think poor man and use a cinch knot, like a fisherman. Then you don't have that heat affect to the wood. Like warping, hardening, becoming brittle, you know what I mean. This is a clinch knot,

clip the ends close. depending on the wire diameter, Perfection.