Original poster: "resonance" <resonance@xxxxxxxxxxxx>You are much further ahead using MMC style caps for a small/medium size coil. 1/4 the size of a plate cap, glass overheats and cracks, hard to transport with a liquid insulated cap, and other headaches. Consider the MMC route and you will be much happier.
Start washing/waxing neighbor cars for $20 a shot and you will have you cap funds in less than 30 days! I told another young grade school experimenter to get a Walmart car buffer, some Turtle wax, and do this --- he made $300 his first week doing it! Do a good job and you will have a nice year round small side repeat business that will support your TC hobby.
Also --- a 23 mA xmfr will deliver miserably small sparks.A 12/60 nst has the ability to deliver at least 40 inch long sparks --- from the free plans and photographs that I sent you.
If you are quite diplomatic, and a student with good communication skills, I would bet you could convince a local neon sign shop in a large city to "donate" a 12/60 to a "worthy project". You could also get a plumbing shop to "donate" a length of 6 inch ID PVC tube for your secondary coil and another 7 inch long piece for your stationary copper tube spark gap.
Like Victor Kiam said in his excellent book on marketing (Going for t") --- you have to "paint a vista" for the person you are trying to convince. Be persistant and work at it. Tell them face to face (definitely not over the phone) how this will help you get started in a life long career in electronics. You will succeed! It worked for me in 1961!
Dr. Resonance
Original poster: jhowson4@xxxxxxxxxxxI had the kit for about a week but I did not do anything with it because the directions confused me. And then the teacher made me bring it back to school because he does not know if the school Originally paid for it or if the previous teacher bought it himself. Apparently I can't have it if the school bought it and I might not even be allowed to build it without teacher supervision because if I get hurt I could sue the school and they don't want that. GRRRRRR The school is slow at deciding anything but I am optimistic because the school will only buy stuff from certain companies and thankfully information unlimited is not one of them so there is a good chance that it was bought by the teacher and not the school. But the next meeting that the people are having is after Christmas.(yet another GRRRR)I can try and get pictures and a list of every thing it comes with.I will have to borrow a digital camera or I could just wait until Christmas when I will be getting one(yay).