Re: Fu Manchu coil

• To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
• Subject: Re: Fu Manchu coil
• From: Richard Hull <rhull-at-richmond.infi-dot-net> (by way of Terry Fritz <terryf-at-verinet-dot-com>)
• Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 22:34:33 -0700
• Approved: terryf-at-verinet-dot-com

Tesla List wrote:

> Original Poster: Jonathan Bazemore <jpbazemo-at-ouray.cudenver.edu>
>
>      I was watching a movie with Boris Karloff, and he had a large (about 5'
> tall) coil
> that he was drawing sparks off to his fingers.  The secondary look like
it was
> tapering
> in diameter towards the top, and it made a sharp raspy zzzzz sound, like the
> spark
> gap was hidden somewhere under the coil.  Does anyone know about this FX
coil,
> design, etc.?

  All of these coils were the work of Ken Strickfaden.  He was the electrical
special effects guy of the century.  His coils were all of the older classic
design utilizing classic materials and very poor performers for the power
input.
Nonetheless, his props were staggering for their time and Karloff hated being
around those coils when they were working.

 I used to know which was which.  He had many coils, but his two most seen
units
are "meg Jr." and "meg Sr."  Ed Angel inherited at lot of Ken's stuff when
he died
and also has produced effects for hollywood in a number of films (Terminator,
etc).

A lot of this info and data has been continuously published in TCBA NEWS
over the
last 15 years.  Old pre-internet coilers all know the stories.  Campfire
tales, as
it were.

Richard Hull, TCBOR

• Prev: Re: Cheap 20nF 20kV pulse caps
• Next: Ok.. where am I going wrong
• Index(es):
  • Main
  • Thread