For what it may or may not be worth back in '64 Popular Electronics did a few Tesla Coil articles called Big TC and Lil' TC. I built the big tc and with some tweaking finally got it working. I used a 15 KV 30mA neon sign transformer. The capacitors were hand made and I remember using copper foil snanwiched between plates of glass all mounted in wood. Each cap I used 3 plates of glass, I remember that much.
I found this old refrence to the article on Big TC. If you google enough you might find more on the article(s). However, the caps were home brew with trips to the hardware store.
The Lil' TC was sort of cool and useds a vacuum tube (valve) as an oscillator driving an old B&W TV flyback transformer.
Ron.