Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris K
I thought there was a person on the east coast who at one time was very passionate about doing this but I haven’t heard anything about it for years. I think he was waiting to retire from the Navy before going at it full bore? Maybe I’m thinking of something else.
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You're thinking about Nick Williams (he goes by miniman82 here). As I understand it he did retire from the Navy, but instead of living close to the museum he moved to the east coast, bought his own set of rebuilding equipment, got busy with family and is rarely heard from.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris K
Thank you so much and I got the PM. So it appears the largest hurdle is not the actual process, it's securing space and permits for the use of chemicals and disposal. That makes sense and gives me a better ideal of the challenges. It appears step one in this, if it is to operate as a business, is to recruit an investor who would see value in offering this service.
That being said, what about the process would require the most specialized piece of equipment? Rinsing and cleaning seems like it would be possible to replicate without the multi-station equipment that serves a production setup. Glass etching and phosphor deposition seems like a reasonably replicated process as would be graphite "painting" of the inside neck region. The 12JP4 and 10BP4 CRT's would not need aluminum vapor deposition.
Perhaps the entire process does not need to be completed at this point in time and a collection of tubes could be stockpiled at some step where storage, for now, is a reasonable win? I wonder if partially processed tubes at the rinsed out and cleaned step would move the ball down the field enough to at least eliminate some of the initial challenges and redefine the starting point? I guess I'm suggesting there's no harm in collectors breaking vacuum, etching the neck break point, removing the gun assembly and sticking a rubber stopper in it for now. That's something that could be done in a home shop. Maybe we don't need to think about this as if we need to hit a base clearing home run...just an RBI single for now to get a run or two across the plate.
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A couple of thoughts.
1.) Don't break the vacuum on color tubes! The shadow mask can rust from extended exposure moisture in the air (creating dead phosphor triads) and phospor can also be damaged from prolonged exposure (especially if condensation forms). The only tubes I would recommend breaking vacuum on and storing are monochrome tubes with significant phospor damage (burned center spot, ion burn, vertical collapse burn line, projection or monitor tubes with raster/image burn in, etc) that HAVE TO be rescreened anyway. (Ones without phospor damage don't necessarily need rescreening...a new heater-cathode assembly is all they genuinely NEED to be nicely functional)
2.) There were aluminized versions of the 10BP4 (the 10FP4) and 12LP4 (the 12KP4) they're brighter and more desirable than the non-aluminized versions. And while it's not necessary to convert them to aluminized it is something that adds value to the tubes so if it can be done without too many equipment/operator issues it would likely be a desirable process that some would pay extra for.