Re: Connecting pipes together for primary?

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Esondrmn@xxxxxxx 

Blimpie,

It is done all the time.  Both of my primaries have splices in them.  With 
a little practice, you will not even be able to see the joints.  I doubt 
you could measure any increase in resistance or lowering of Q.  The key to 
nice looking splices is the same as plumbing joints - clean well first, 
flux or use rosin flux solder, and wipe the excess liquid solder off the 
joint with a damp rag.

Ed Sonderman


Ok, so I am building a new tesla coil. So far I have
15kv and 90mA worth of NST's, a saltwater cap to be
rebuilt, and my secondary will be 6.5" diameter by
about 29" with 23awg wire (around 1200 or so turns).
As for my primary, it is pretty tough to get 1/4" OD
copper pipe here in great lengths. To my calculations,
I will need around 70 feet or so of the pipe. I can
get 10' lengths for around 2 bucks, and a 50 foot roll
is like 40 bucks. Could I, essentially, use 10'
lengths, with a piece of 1/8" od pipe inside the ends
of the 1/4" pipe (to make good electrical and physical
connection), and solder them together? It seems to me,
that as long as I sand away the solder to be smooth
with the pipe, it shouldn't be a problem for primary
arcing. The only other thing i see is the resistance
going up a bit, and changing the res freq a little
bit.

Anyone have any input on this, or any links to where I
can see it done?

Thanks in advance,
Blimpie