Are you doing juice burning? I find that that works very well. Coat your wick in juice, hold it vertical with a pair of pliers, light the top and let it burn to the bottom. You'll notice that it will make the SS glow as well. I'm not sure if it's hot enough to be oxidizing, but I like to assume it's doing 2 things at once. I also find that the more the wick has been used, the less shorting you'll have. Make sure you're not wrapping the coil too tight so that it doesn't dig into the mesh. You want the coil to evenly be in contact with the wick, but not to make a good enough contact with the mesh to entice the electrons into entering the mesh. Remember, electricity will always follow the path of least resistance. I find that top coil shorts are often caused when you tighten the positive screws, the wire will get pulled tightly into the mesh. Bottom hot spots are usually caused by long, loose leads to the negative screw, and anything in the middle is an oxidizing issue.
Look for Zen's video on youtube (I believe he is sitting outside at a picnic table showing a bunch of people how to coil a genesis. I use his method of turning the atty while firmly, but not tightly, holding the wire. Tooth picks work great for adjusting your coil (poke the wire from above or below, don't drag the tip of the tooth pick along the mesh, you could scratch off oxidization). Adjust your coil while the wire is still warm (not red hot, you'll end up burning the tooth pick), that way they'll stay where you put them.
For wick (I have the same ChID as you) I take 500 mesh and make a wick that is 6-6.5 cm in width, hold the piece with pliers and with a kitchen stove (gas) oxidize it as evenly as possible, then roll it up really tightly (it will have to be super tight to fit into the wick hole, if it fits it's good) with as small a center hole as I can get (almost non existant - I can't get anything down the hole, but if I put the fill hole in bubbles will come out of the bottom of the wick, so air is still traveling though), then with the stove I'll oxidize that some more. Get it nice and evenly dark grey (not black and ashy), then I do the juice method I mentioned earlier a few times. Test it with a multi meter (poke the probes all over it and see if it completes the circuit).
I leave the fill screw out and it wicks boba's bounty just fine, even in the car with the windows down in 40 degree weather.
More than anything it's trial and error to get it right, while following a few principles which is why this post seems so complicated (and everyone will tell you to do something different), but it's really not that hard or time consuming once you get the hang of it.
I stay away from the rolling paper trick, it does work if you wrap your coil very tightly (never wrap it that tightly when not using rolling paper though), but I find that it weirds up the flavor.
Zen video
here.
