Spiderweb primary for mini-TC?

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

Original poster: "Jolyon Vater Cox by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jolyon-at-vatercox.freeserve.co.uk>

I am considering building a spiderweb primary to go with a vitamin-pill tube
secondary in a mini-TC. The wire will be regular insulated hookup wire wound
over and under a polystyrene sheet and due to the spiderweb design will be more
closely pitched than normal with flat pancake primaries. Have spiderweb coils
been used in TCs before -either as primaries or secondaries? How well do they
perform
-would they be OK for a mini coil?
 
I anticipate tuning might be a problem with the close pitched insulated wire I
- I am considering making a small "roller-coaster" off-axis inductor on a
plastic pipe to connect in series with primary to deal with that. Also I am
considering about a primary consisting two spiderweb coils at base of secondary
-one fixed and the other on a slider so the the primary inductance can be
adjusted for tuning purposes -is this a practical proposition or just a recipe
for trouble?  Are there any other options?