How To Build A Cheap Saltwater Capacitor

The parts you will need are:
1 - 5 gallon bucket
12 - 12oz beer bottles
4 - canisters of table salt
2 - 1/4-20 brass bolts(can be regular steel, but brass holds up better to the saltwater influence) and nuts
1 - quart cheap motor oil(you want oil with no additives)
about 1' of aluminum foil
a couple feet of 12AWG copper wire

1. Fold your ~1' piece of aluminum foil into a strip about an inch in width. This will be the conductor that reaches into the bottom of the bucket. Bend your inch wide strip into an "L" shape so that it lies along the bottom of the bucket and extends up the side of the bucket. Towards the top of the bucket you will be making a hole through the foil and side of the bucket for one of your bolts. Insert bolt through the hole and install a nut. Make a hole at the same height on the opposite side of the bucket for the other bolt, but do not install that one yet. It's easier to do that now while the bucket is empty.
2. Place 12 empty beer bottles into the 5 gallon bucket. They will fit loosely but won't be able to tip over.
3. In another bucket(at least as larger as the bucket you're using for the capacitor), mix HOT water and the table salt. Make sure you stir this mixture a lot. You want as much salt as possible to dissolve. I have even heard some need to get more salt.
4. Fill each bottle to the base of the bottles neck with your saltwater mixture. You'll want all 12 bottles to be filled to the same level.
5. Fill the bucket outside the bottles to the same level as the bottles are filled. When I made my first bucket, it was at this point I realized I didn't make enough saltwater. Try to mix enough so this does not happen to you. :-)
6. Pour a small amount of oil into each bottle and then onto the surface of the outer bucket area. The oils function is to suppress corona that will form. If you are just starting out in the hobby you may want to do this step later so that you can see what this looks like. It looks cool, though the energy used to form the corona is wasted and is better used to make longer sparks.
7. You will be cutting and bending the copper wire now. The length of the wire will need to be from below the surface of the water in one bottle, up and out the neck and down into an adjacent bottle to the same depth. Kind of a "U" shape. Each bottle needs at least two wires so that they are all interconnected.
8. From the bottle closest to your empty hole you will need a piece of wire from below the surface of the water to the hole. This wire will wrap around the bolt that will be installed into the hole. Install the bolt and a nut.
9. If you have a meter, take a reading on the finished capacitor. If not don't worry it'll be pretty close to .01uF.