High Voltage Diode Questions

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Original poster: "David Rieben" <drieben-at-midsouth.rr-dot-com> 

Hi all,

I just received some high voltage diodes that I won off of ebay today. They 
can be seen at: 
<http://cgi.ebay-dot-com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=3825303927&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT>http://cgi.ebay-dot-com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=3825303927&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT
First of all, I believe that they come out of an x-ray power supply. Notice 
that they are of the heavy duty stackable "hockey puck" style instead of 
the little seriesed diodes
"sticks". I went ahead and asked him if he would sell me 3 of his other 
diodes like this for making a full-wave bridge rectifier capable of 150 kV 
at 1.5 amps for the same price each as the first one. He agreed so I now 
have 4 of these 150 kV diode stacks for a little over $100, including 
shipping ;^) Not too bad..

Anyway, I'm assuming that there'd be no problem to use them as a rectifier 
for a large DC powered coil system as the primary circuit voltage would be 
<25 kV with a 14.4 kV pig as the HV transformer. I realize that I'd have to 
have large filtering caps and inductive chokes with them, but I'm thinking 
that these would work great in this type of setup.

I'm also assuming that they must be operated under oil to operate at 
anything near their voltage rating since 150 kV would easily "creep" around 
the surface of these units in open air? I'm sure they were submerged inside 
of the x-ray tranny tank under the oil.

Thanks,
David Rieben