Smoky.... I hate to be overly critical with someone who is actually experimenting, but I have to jump in here.
You've made several statements during your work with static electricity that are, frankly, wrong.
Such as what you have said here about Leyden jars and high voltage.
I'd hate to see anyone hurt or killed because they think that a Leyden jar charged to hundreds of kV will be "safe".
Skin effect has to do with frequency, not voltage. DC currents at high voltage, backed by even relatively small capacitances,
can be _very dangerous_ indeed. Charge a decent Leyden jar or bank to hundreds of kV and discharge that across your body: you will
probably die. However, I seriously doubt that you have ever encountered voltages in the hundreds of kV range with your setups. But I
have a lot of experience with such voltages (even to the point of nearly killing myself a couple of times.) If you have a system that can
sustain hundreds of kV long enough to charge a Leyden jar to that voltage, you have something that could indeed be _deadly_ with
only a few tens or hundreds of picoFarads of capacitance, easily within reach of a good Leyden jar.
Something like a good, well-tuned Tesla Coil can make hundreds of kV and this can indeed be safe when touched because the
_frequency_ of the AC current is high enough that the current is confined to a thin "skin" and doesn't pass through the body but
rather goes over the outside. But this is an AC effect having to do with high frequency and is very different from how DC current at HV works.
You've talked several times about "frequency" of your Voss machine. This is a _DC_ machine (although it may sometimes reverse
its charge polarity). You must not mistake the frequency (rate) of spark discharges with the frequency of an AC signal or current.
A higher DC current means a greater _rate_ of spark discharge, for a given capacitance and voltage (gap). If you also have substantial
inductance in your setup (em inductance not es) then _during the individual sparks_ you may have some AC ringing, but you
cannot see this without an oscilloscope, and this will not protect you in the event of an accidental discharge through your body.
You are safe at low ES voltages if capacitance is small. But even with "small" capacitance, DC voltages in the hundreds of kV can be
very dangerous.
The "good news" is that it is difficult to make a proper Leyden Jar that will actually hold off hundreds of kV without puncturing or shorting. That's why
I prefer to use strontium or barium titanate doorknob capacitors in series stacks. A stack of ten, 1200 pf 40 kV doorknobs will stand off 400 kV reliably.
But you'd have to be crazy to try to deliberately take a discharge from such a stack through your body. You can easily die from only a few Joules
of energy through the chest.
Carry on, you are doing good work, but... carry on _SAFELY_ and beware of capacitors charged to EHV.
For amusement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpemKuf6X_c