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Arcs off the fingers and getting killed in the process...

Hi All,

With the recent TV show about Dean Ortner shooting sparks off his fingers
and the other stunts pros like Brent turner and Robert Krampf perform,
there is the question of how we should handle this whole matter...

There are ways to perform such stunts in "relative" safety.  However, do we
try and explain these safety measures, always being in fear of leaving
something out and killing someone??  Or do we "stonewall" the subject as in
the posts of last year where someone was inquiring into this (Chris Boden,
I think???).  Jeff Parisse and I refused to give any information in fear we
would only to help kill someone...

Today, a relative newcomer in the Tesla coiling hobby can build darn
powerful coils in the first try without the "typical" high voltage learning
curve.  Before, we generally assumed someone with a high power pig system
knew exactly what they were doing through years of experience.  But now,
the information is easily available to build a really deadly system as a
first coil.  Cabbott Sanders started out "big" and many of us feared (I
did) that he was going to hurt himself in his all out high power ball
lightning quest.  He ended up losing a finger and being one of the most
safety aware people around.  However, if we all went that route, most of
use would be dead...

I think the safety aspect of this hobby has changed radically.  We used to
look at the giant arcs of Richard Hull knowing that was far beyond "our"
ability to repeat.  The safety of those arcs was not a concern because "we"
would never get that advanced.  However, today ANYONE can collect the parts
and ask "us" for the tips on not only matching Richard's coils but
surpassing them...  In many ways, a newcomer can get killed far far easier
than ever before.

The "shooting sparks off the fingers" thing looks like it is so much fun
and so easy to do...  Many people are tempted to try it themselves.   Gary
Weaver and others have tried to repeat this (Gary does know what he is
doing too!) only to come near to death!  The old trick picture of Tesla
sitting by his big arcing coil, only serves to reinforce the incorrect
notion that Tesla coils or somehow magically safe.  I think the
professional practitioners of this art of "sparks off the fingers" would be
amazed at how easily anyone can collect a pole pig, a variac, and a roll of
magnet wire and be "repeating" their human fire ball demos in about a
week...  Tesla coils are no longer difficult to get working things that
only a few can get to work.  Anyone that can find the parts, can make very
high powered coil easily.  No great knowledge is needed.  The Internet can
supply all the "mechanical" details one needs...  Supplying the "how not to
get killed" part is far less obvious...

So how do we try to convince people that Tesla coils can kill very easily
in this new world...  And how do we convince them that those old pictures
of people arcing things of their fingers is really dangerous when it looks
like so much fun...

	Terry