Very strange problem, please help

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Original poster: "David Kronstein by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <david_kronstein-at-telus-dot-net>

I took out my coil after not using it for a long time, and I decided to use
only 4 gaps out of 10 for now, so I put a CD on top, and I turn it on. I'm
getting sparks about ten inches, but after a few seconds, the arcs start
getting longer, and longer, and longer, until about 12 seconds later there
about 30 inches long, so I turn it off, and go searching for something else to
put on, and I find a tin can, so I put that on top, and turn it on.  Again I
start out with 10 inch arcs, and they grow, over about 15 seconds, to about 36
inches long, so long they started striking the fluorescent light above, also
the capacitor safety gap starts firing about once a second, so I shut down.
 
Transformer is a 15/60 neon, cap is a 0.01uf 20 KVAC Plastic Capacitors,
primary is tapped at 12.6 T, using quarter inch pipe spaced at 1/2 inch centre
to centre, secondary is 1000 T #24 wire on 4 inch PVC toroid is 4 inch TD by
17"OD, spark gap is a cylinder gap, built on a 6 inch PVC pipe, electrodes are
1.5 inch copper pipe couplings, spaced at 0.03(Most of the gaps are larger than
this, maybe ~0.04)with ten gaps, cap safety gap is made of 2 stove bolts, heads
facing together, with a gap of a little less then 1/2 an inch.
 
Any idea what's causing this? Please help.
Also, is the cap rated high enough?