HDPE vs Wood Primary Coil Supports

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

Original poster: "Jeremy Scott by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <supertux1-at-yahoo-dot-com>

Hi everyone!

I'm building my second Tesla coil, about 7" secondary
diameter.

My first coil used HDPE (cutting board) as the primary
coil support, and it was a pain in the butt to cut
that stuff accurately and cleanly. I understand that
it has great RF and high voltage insulation
properties, making it an ideal dielectric for
everything from caps to primary mountings, but it
is expensive and difficult to work with.

I have a more complicated primary coil design for
my next coil, and I was wondering if anyone here has
built their primary supports out of wood? I am much
better at working wood than I am at working plastic,
but I'm not so sure that wood is a good idea, given
that all wood contains a certain percentage of water
and tends to 'kindle' at high temperatures.

I figure that if use some polyethylene varish on the
wood before mounting the primary into it that it would
mitigate the water effect. (Assuming that the wood is
porous enough to absorb the PE)

TIA

Jeremy