My First Toob Coil

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

Original poster: "Sundog by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <sundog-at-timeship-dot-net>

Hi All!
 
    With many thanks to my buddy James, my first toob coil is well underway.   
 
My specs so far 
  plate tranny  - MOT with the voltage doubler in place - 2 MOT caps in
parallel
  Filament tranny - MOT with secondary chiseled off and wrapped in 12ga THHN
house wire. 10v -at- 10A easy.  
  Secondary - 4" green drainpipe wound with 26ga enameled wire, Fres 323 khz
(thanks for the o-scope James!! it's Da Bomb!)
  Toobs - 2   833a's    These things just look sinister when powered up.  :) 
My co-workers though I was building a bomb or something when they saw me check
them over after they were delivered, but I simply laughed, as these are plainly
parts for a Death Ray! ;))  at a rated 1650 watts each, these should really
rock in toob coil duty.  
 
  I haven't wound the primary yet, as I don't have a good value for the tank
cap or primary yet.  I was planning on using around a 5nf tank cap, and however
many turns it took me to get it resonant at ~300khz (i can get there roughly by
calcs and scope, and then get it close to dead-on with the scope) The
bottom-most turns I'll leave tappable so I can get the adjustment I want. 
 
So far, making all the various parts and connections for the coil has been a
different and fun challenge.  While I'm still not 100% clear on the operation
of vacuum tubes, I understand them enough for this application.
 
 the schematics James sent me calls for Mica caps, but I'm sadly lacking those,
so I'll be stringing up MMC caps to fill this duty.  I have enough strings to
get my to the necessary capacitancies.  Though the voltage ratings will be far
(10-15x) overkill, I don't know about the current ratings.  I'm not worried
about toasting caps though, I'm more concerned about the tubes.  
Now for my questions
  How critical is the value of the tank cap and grid leakage cap?  The grid
leakage R determines the "breakrate" of the toob coil.  I'm assuming you'd want
it to run the tube as hard as you can for the least plate redness while
charging the tank cap up as to full.
 
  What's the difference between staccato, pulsed, and raw AC (feeding the
tubes)?
 
  do I have to ground *everything* around the coil that I don't want to get
shocked by?
 
  I think that's got it for now.  Opinions, comments, and criticism welcome
                                                                           
        Shad