So here we begin the long journey of an attempt at a tesla coil. My aim is to create a medium sized tesla coil, and after having watched hours of videos and read through many websites and a book, feel as though this is a journey that will not be fruitless. 

This project will be fully designed and layed out prior to constructing a single component. While during the construction of a tesla coil, there are many components that are highly variable, such as coil diameter, number of turns, capacitance, etc,.. , there are some components which are a bit more rigid in terms of variability. Such is the transformer, which is largely determined by availability and cost. 

While funding for this project is finite, I have chosen to use an oil burning transformer in lieu of the commonplace neon sign transformer found in many TC projects. They are typically offered in 10,000 volt, 23ma variants. According to http://deepfriedneon.com/tesla_guide.html, the spark length is proportional to the power output of the transformer. Consequently, we can either change the voltage or the current supplied by the transformer to alter the power output. 

As a result, my plan is to use (2) identical OBITS (oil burning ignition transformers) wired in parallel for twice the output current. We cannot, in this instance, series wire the transformers and expect they will not catastrophically fail, according to many people more experienced than myself.

I have purchased (2) new OBITs, shown above, for this venture. The cost, combined, was less than that of a single NST, albeit slightly lower current output as a result.