[whirligig]

Yep, the phenolic spacer that presses down on the plates crumbled. It since have been replaced with a plastic one I scrounged up. Maybe I can replace the celluloid with mica. It should have a higher dielectric constant. What do you think?

I will have a look at the coil. If direction and #turns look OK, I'll dry it out with a heat gun set on low. There's no oven in the shop.