Coil Experiments / Old Tesla plans

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Original poster: "Simon Yorkston by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <quantumx-at-ozemail-dot-com.au>

Hi all.
Amongst all the other paraphenalia I have lying around my room, I have a
book called "Junior Science Projects", which features Tesla coil plans. No
doubt you've seen them before; I've seen them on the net once or twice. The
plans seem to concentrate on making the coil look more pretty than
functional in my humble opinion, but it details some interesting
experiments.

It describes the one with incandescent and fluorescent lightbulbs, that we
have all heard of and played with. However, it has other quite interesting
and pretty looking experiments. Namely, "a 12 in. length of small nichrome
or steel piano wire attached to the terminal [no topload those days], at the
center of the wire, gives two blasting lavender coloured rings of electrical
fireworks." - The pictures may be black and white, but they look great!

Also, putting some stiff wire, moulded to the shape of:

                                                     |
/----------------------------------------------------/
|

[hope the ascii came out]
attached to the center of the terminal, and allowed to freely spin, creates
"an electrical pinwheel". Again, the pictures look great.

So if you have a free afternoon, some great things to do :)

Best of luck, and coil safely,
Simon