Yes, I'm very :ahem: experienced with it. Especially when you try to get a spark plug on your lawnmower to spark to see if the Magneto is generating and your not properly ground the plug.
O, that bites
Edit: Oh, and yes I have been bit by a coil too!
Looking back, and I have a hell of a lot of back to look at I have had my share of bites from just about every coil imaginable to man. Among the first was a REO Lawnmower engine when I grabbed the spark plug. That was only preceded on a low voltage scale by shoving a butter knife in the toaster.
However, as to all this on capacitors. I actually remember when high voltage doorknob caps were common place. The high voltage sections of TVs used a 1B3 high voltage rectifier tube and plenty of HV caps. Easily harvested for your building pleasure. Today the damn things trade like gold on a commodities market. Go figure?
I also submerged my share of home brew caps in mineral oil as well as other HV projects.
I built my first Tesla Coil back in 1964 as I mentioned in an earlier post based on a Popular Electronics article. Every month I looked forward to PE and QST magazines. Those were the only Tesla Coils I ever built so I am far from a guru on the subject. If anyone thinks tossing quarter million volt arcs is cool now, it was really cool then (or hot if you look at the spark).
Anyway, solid state neon sign transformers weren't invented so that left the more practical transformers of the day to work with. The popular choice was a 15 KV 30 mA transformer running on 60 Hz unless you were elsewhere running 50 Hz mains power.
Now I don't remember everything but even then screwing with capacitors and arc gaps was a *****. That discounting winding the coils. Wind and dope with corona dope. Over and over again. Then pray there was no breakdown.
Possibly fortunately in 1964 there was no Internet. This left the home HV enthusiast with a library (I think they still exist) and thinking to do as well as magazine pictures in black and white.
Now I figure it this way and forgive me if I am off base. Back then we made caps with sheets of glass and copper or aluminum foil. A few sheets of each and a simple wooden frame gets things going. I mentioned that many post ago. Granted tweaking and peaking can be a ***** but it should beat the hell out of trying to order **** from all over hells half acre from wherever on the internet. Aluminum foil and glass are still cheap and the visual aurora are priceless if the damn thing works.
Just My Take
Ron