Yippee! Success!

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

Original poster: "Garry F. by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <garryfre-at-pacbell-dot-net>

Well, I started a project that I've been putting off for some months.

The project - Rebuild my coil so it looks half way presentable.

As usual, I spent 90% of my time looking for tools that were in front of my
face. I have been putting it off because I didn't feel up to doing this
project.

In December, I got three rounds from a lamp of nice wood each about 14
inches accross and about 3/4ths of an inch thick..

Each had a half inch hole already drilled to accept 1/2" dowels so I used
dowls with 6" pvc pipe to separate the levels.

I cut a 4" hole (Was supposed to be 3.5 Inches, but the hardware stores had
only 3" and 4" hole cutters and the 4" was ten dollars more! ;-/ so I just
happend to find an end cap that fit into the hole perfectly and I cut the
3.5" hole through this.

The secondary inserts into the top level and rests on a end cap screwed down
on the second level.

I cut a 7" plastic ring and cut nine 3" pieces of molding for brackets to
hold down the primary windings and anchored the inside end after inserting a
seven inch plastic ring under to help guide the windings.

With a 3.5" X 17 and 5/8ths length of wound wire secondary and a .013 MMC
and a

The flat primary is of of insulated (Insulation thickness about 1/32nd of an
inch) #12 guage wire, inside diameter of 7", I calcuated the primary at
tuning out at 9.18 turns. Can someone confirm this for me? Thanks!

I would the primary, and screwed down the ends of the mouldings to hold the
secondary down. This seem to work well, with the insulation, no holes needed
to be drilled in the moulding aside from one hole at each end of the
brackets. It holds the primary windings in place but allowed me to move the
windings apart to make tap points. The primary sits directly on top of the
top level.

One I wired it correctly, I plugged it in and Viola! Nice streamers at least
25" long.

I ended up stopping at 9 turns, I might go the extra fifth of a winding, but
I am not sure if I should count the 6" of wire leading to the primary as
part of the windings. I also am not sure if the extra 7" of wire I would
need to reach the exact tuning point would not be offset by the wire length.
Opinions on this?

Well, I can't say it looks as good as many of the coils on the web site but
its a vast improvment over what it used to look like which was kinda like a
jack in the box with a toriod on top. The box was 16" by 16" by 16" and one
of the panels was backwards so that the rough side was outside. and the
handles were a full inch too low and crooked as a corkscrew. It took me a
full month to notice! Considering I have no power saws and my depth
perception is shot from years of being near blind, I consider it a vast
improvement in appearance and portability. Trying to carry around the other
one was like trying to flip a rhino.

I may put up a picture of it later, but I'm so glad I was able to put this
thing together without some big hitch I had to tell someone. To be able to
finish this thing without some big screw up, or having something grieviously
crooked or cutting something too short I consider nothing short of a miracle
or having to make several trips to the hardware store to buy some tool I
already had but just couldn't find is miraculous in itself. I never did find
my buffing wheel that I just had moments before so I ended up rubbing the
wooden brackets on the concrete porch to sand the rough ends down. So far, I
haven't lost my porch, but if I keep using it as a tool, it's a fair chance
I will eventually.