I made a thing. It's a small part of a larger thing - updated

 Working on My Last Tesla Coil™ (AKA The Heirloom Coil) again, slowly.  One of many fiddly little things which need to be done on it is the connections to the primary coil.  Tesla coil enthusiasts have come up with half a hundred ways to make those connections, and nearly all of them suck. 

 I already went to extraordinary lengths to make it easier to bring good, short connections to the primary, which would not stick up above the primary (thus providing fewer targets for secondary strikes).  I've never seen any other coil builder do this, so naturally I've got to be speshul...

 So for some months I have been pondering some sort of connector / clip / interface gizmo which:

• could be easily installed in any of the radial slots
• provides a solid but easily changed connection to the primary from below
• provides a solid connection to the tank circuit cable and takes the weight of same off the primary conductor itself

I now have a conceptual design, I'm ordering materials - mostly phenolic rod and tube - to make the plunger assembly and the support, uh, thingummy / puck / module / unit / doohickey, which can be seen in sketch at the top of this image:

The wide part will sit on top of the deck to support the weight of the cable, the narrower part below that rides in the slot as a guide and mechanical support for the plunger. The hole through the center will actually be much larger than the one shown on the sketch, as originally I was thinking the plunger would be a brass bolt, but I have made it much larger.

 The hardware in the center of the photo is the prototype clip I made, which will go on the end of the plunger, and makes the connection to the copper ribbon of the primary coil.  I'm quite proud of that little thing.  It's nothing more than a .75" wide piece of copper strip, formed to fit in and around one of those little black steel "bull dog" paper clips, like this one:

 The spring steel of the binder clip maintains firm clamping pressure while the copper maintains a nice low-impedance path for the high RF circulating currents.

 Making that little bastard took nearly two hours, and I need two of them.  I suspect I won't need more than an hour to do the second one, now that I know how to do it.  The clips will be soldered to the ends of brass plungers made of .75" tubing, which in turn will slide inside phenolic tubes having closed ends with only a slot in the top, allowing the insulating tube to be fitted over the primary winding, like this:

 This somewhat over-engineered design is intended to cut down on corona and arcing between the primary connectors and adjacent windings.  I've never seen any other coil builder do this, so naturally I've got to be speshul... 

(wait, where have I heard that before?)

 I'm hoping to give this coil to a friend and brother, if he wants it. (he doesn't know that yet, and I haven't asked, and until just recently, he would have had no place to store or operate it - but he just moved into a bigger place with loads of room).  But he loves Tesla coils, he loves this kind of craftsmanship and attention to detail, and I suspect when he sees the finished primary taps he will lose his mind and that makes me happy.  I like it when grown men giggle.

 The thing is... I've built literally dozens of Tesla coils, ranging from a minimalist thing made with two transistors, two resistors, and a flyback from a TV all the way up to twelve kilowatt monsters that made arcs ten feet long.  When I decided to get out of the coiling hobby, I told myself I would build one more "really nice one" (just very general thinking at that point) either for myself, or if I needed the dough, it had to be something nice enough, and reliable enough, to sell for good money.

 So this thing is supposed to be one of a kind - something special.  I don't call it "museum quality" because what "museum quality" really means is that something rugged enough to stand up to being handled and operated either by the public or by unpaid volunteers, and built to last - but that does not mean it is the best of its breed.

 I mean for this coil to be as good as it can get without going to a solid state modern design - I'm a romantic at heart and I like spark gaps, although the consequence is that this coil isn't as efficient, and it will never sing music. 

 Call me a purist or a snob, but I don't really need my Tesla coil to make music.  They make terrible  loudspeakers anyhow, and I'm a music and hi-fi lover too.  Lots of big, long arcs and throat-searing quantities of ozone are music enough to this old-fashioned mad scientist's ears.