Re: HDPE vs Wood Primary Coil Supports

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

Original poster: "colin.heath4 by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <colin.heath4-at-ntlworld-dot-com>

hi jeremy,
                 i have used wood on my 6" coil which ran up to 4kva at 15kv
primary voltage . this presented no probs as far as the wood breaking down
although i did track it with a dodgy primary tap which arced
the only thing i did to mine was bake in an oven at 50degrees centigrade for
an hour then i coated with polyurethane varnish (2 coats).
then when i fitted the primary onto these supports i used hot glue in the
grooves the copper sat in. the hot glue is a very good insulator as
discussed before on the list
i have ran this coil many times. once a day when i first built it with no
breakdown of the wood. for amateur use i wood say its fine pun intended
cheers
colin

----- Original Message -----
From: Tesla list <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2003 7:29 PM
Subject: HDPE vs Wood Primary Coil Supports


 > 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
 >
 >
 >