[TCML] Toroid Problems

["Nicholas J. Goble" <ngoble@xxxxxxx>]

Last night, I fired up my coil for the first time.  I set everything up
and made sure that all the connections were solid.  When I plugged the
NST in, the spark gap fired, but there were no sparks coming from the
toroid.  I tapped the entire primary, but got no streamers.  At a few
points, the safety gap was firing, so I guessed that the caps were
working.  I thought that the only thing that could be wrong was the
toroid.  When I disconnected the toroid and ran the coil, I got
streamers and some corona coming from the tip of the secondary wire.  I
was able to tune the coil without the toroid.  I got 5-6 inch
streamers/sparks from the wire.

Here are the specifications for my toroid:
4" height
17" outer diameter
9" inner diameter
I took two flimsy 9" pie pans and glued them together.  Then I wrapped 
4" aluminum dryer duct tubing around it and secured the ends together 
with duct tape.  I secured the tube's connection to the base with caulk 
on the rim of the pie pans.  I took some aluminum foil and wrapped it 
around the duct taped section, and connected that to the base (pie 
pans) with more duct tape.  I drilled a hole in the middle of the pans 
and attached a nut and bolt.  I sanded off most of the enamel of the 
end of the secondary wire and secured it to the middle of the toroid 
with the bolt.

My secondary is 4" dia and 21" tall.  I'm using a 9/30 NST.  Can anyone 
diagnose my problem?  I dobut that my toroid is too big.  If anything, 
I thought it would be too small.  I used a nail to create a breakout 
point on the toroid while it was running and it still failed to produce 
streamers.  What's the problem?

Thanks

Nicholas Goble
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