You must have quite slow fuses in 110 V land if you can do a reliable
ignition without blowing the fuse. For 230 V operation, I would
suggest using a current limiting resistor (such as a large heater) or
an inductance (such as fluorescent light ballast) during the ignition.
When there is a solid arc, the current limiter can be shorted out.

Paul


Did you know that a carbon arc acts as a negative resistance? Run the
arc on DC and put an LC tuned circuit in series with the arc (coil of
heavy copper tubing) and you have a powerful oscillator.