HELP ME! (SF deadline is approaching)

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Drew Murray by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <drewallmighty-at-hotmail-dot-com>

Ummmmm,
Howdy!
I need help! (with my tesla coil of course)
I am desperately trying to get longer and more impressive sparks out of it. 
Here are the specs;

-- 8" light green PVC sewer pipe, washed and wound with 24 AWG for 26". 
Coated with polyurethane spray.

-- Aluminum flexi duct covered in al tape for topload.

-- 4500v 1kva potential transformer boosted to 10500v with 300v input.(i 
know)

-- Rotary spark gap, small fast dc motor, wooden disc, and steel wood screws 
for electrodes. (I am using screws because i have not seen anything that 
works better) I have gotten over double the spark length with the rsg than i 
did with a RQ static gap. Its some loud though.

-- 50 feet of soft copper 1/4" refrigeration tubing in a flat Archimedes 
spiral form for primary. Around 4 spaces from the outside turn is the best 
tapping point.

-- Homemade stacked plate cap. Made with 1 gallon zip lock baggies. There 
are around 200 of them. I have inserted a foil plate into every fourth bag. 
It works much better than salt water caps but not well enough. I have 
ordered another 200 bags and i am going to try putting two larger ones in a 
series. I am curious about this style of cap. Does coil performance improve 
if you have many large caps in a series?

My longest sparks to this day are around 18 inches. I really want to get 
this puppy throwing nice long white sparks for the science fair and i would 
really appreciate some helpful advice.
                                                     Thanks guys,
                                                     Drew Murray

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