Damn, Jerome, Me Olde Sonne, go to bed !!...(grin)

Thanks, I was curious about how it was used in this case. That makes sense.

I actually have one that I saved from being tossed many years ago. I stuck in a piece of bus bar wire to replace the missing probe.

John

Congrats to all involved! Can't wait to see the first photos.

I remember using one of those to test duds while working for a Sylvania jobber many years ago. Air duds were summarily rejected, sometimes angering the clients!
Kevin

Not to exaggerate, but this has to rank right up with the 1st moon landing, finding the Holy Grail or figuring out who built the pyramids. I've followed this saga since the start...congratulations!!!

Hats off to you!!! You & Scotty deserve royalties on any and all future rebuilds, as far as I can see! I am always impressed when someone takes the notion to do "the impossible", and proves it possible!

The history of trying to do this goes back at least to the mid-1980s, with Ronnie & George at Dunbar in Los Angeles, and later headed by Gary Miller and (un-named collector in Omaha), an attempt by Metrocolor. They came closest in the early 90s, and only failed due to the rusty metal flanges on the duds provided (5 of them provided by the collectors mentioned an myself).

Charles

Congrats Bob, John and Scotty!
 

I've had little interest in the 15GP22 since it had electrostatic convergence and dynamic focus while my 21CT55 had magnetic convergence and static focus. Resteming the 15s seemed to be the last big problem, finding a stem supplier that produces a glass compatible with the original bell glass without cracking, right?

But I still don't know how you obtained the new gun assemblies. Assuming no original guns are available you couldn't use 21in guns since they were magnetic converged. I don't suppose you cutoff the 21's mag convergence pole pieces and attached a simulated electrostatic grid #4 collar to perform the convergence function? Its certainly unrealistic to clone the originals from raw stock. Could you have tediously remove the 3 cathodes with heaters from the original dud and replaced them from new 21in guns.....naw, forget it.

So how did you get perfect replacement gun assemblies for your 15GP22 rebuilds ??? Tom

Tom,

You cut out the 15G gun, send it to have new cathodes and filaments installed, and they then weld it to the new stem. From there the assembly goes to Scotty.

Encouraging news! This may be getting ahead of things, but assuming the process is repeatable, has anyone thought about what price to charge for this rebuild?

Phil Nelson

Great, Great News!
 

Congratulations for making it over another hurdle. Here's hoping the rebuild team makes it to the finish line.

Dear John Folsom,
Please add my name to the guest list for the premier of your rebuilt 15GP22.
Best wishes,

Terry Cheek

This is really exciting news, and I hope the tube installation and operation go as well as the rebuild.

Do you anticipate some quantity of under-vacuum 15GP22s to be rebuilt first before further work is done on leaky ones?

Price has not been determined yet. We still need to work out all of our costs, and determine how the whole thing will work. We will need to colaborate with Scotty and we need to see how Scotty wants to work the arrangement. There are many details athat we have not even thought about yet. It will be a couplemonths before we have the details all worked out and a price set.


ChrisW6ATV, Assuming the gun activation Monday is successful, the tube will be shipped to John Folsom's home in Florida. I will be traveling to Johns house next week and we will install the tube in a set and test it in a real world situation. We will post here in Vk how it turns out.

Some weeks after that we will travel to Hawkeye to rebuild a second under vacuum crt that I own, and we will also experiment with the sealing of a couple crt's that are known leakers to see if we can manage to reseurect the leakey dead.

So we have a couple more months of work at the very least before we will be able to offer the services to all ther rest of the collectors. There is much work yet to be done, but there is now light at the end of the tunnel.

Bob

Congratulations to John, Bob and Scotty!!! This is the best news about color set restoration I've ever heard. It's a tremendous achievement for the state of the art.
Cliff

"Resurrect the Leakey Dead..." Somebody call George Romero-We just came up w/the title for his next movie...See, THIS is what happens when I DON'T have my coffee...(grin)

ahhh that's why I thought of Zombies too this morning. :)