While anecdotal accounts vary, I'm not sure it's ever been demonstrated
that a coated coil will be insulation-wise more robust than a bare coil.
In a close-wound coil, since the space between turns is zero, you can't
gain anything beyond the enamel insulation. Mostly the coating serves
to keep the wire turns from shifting on the form, and it looks nice and
probably offers some degree of abrasion resistance.
Trying to wind a secondary dripping-wet with varnish sounds like a
ticket to mess and frustration!
Regards, Gary Lau
MA, USA
> Original poster: Russell L Thornton <Russell.L.Thornton@xxxxxxxx>
>
>
> Would someone kindly explain to me the process and purpose of
> varnishing the windings of the secondary? Specifically, it seems to
> me that when we are varnishing the coil form raw and letting that
> cure and then varnish again after we wind the wire then the back of
> the wire still remains vulnerable with just the enamel insulation of
> the wire. Of course this assumes close spaced winding. Or am I just
> not seeing the purpose of this exercise. If we were doing this for
> insulation purposes I would like to put a layer of varnish on the
> form mounted to the winding mechanism and while still wet wind the
> wire. What's up here?
>
> Russ,
> Monitoring Lightning at the Cape
>