.
.
.
I just got a call from Scotty...........


THE 15GP22 REBUILD IS A SUCCESS!!!


Scotty was just as anxious to see of we had a success as all the rest of us. He got there at 5AM and pulled the tube out of the oven. He did a spark test on the tube with his Tesla coil and she is still under vacuum.

Scotty had other plans for the weekend and so will flash the getters and activate the cathodes on Monday. I will post more about how the guns test on Monday, but Scotty says the gun assembly looks VERY good. "Looks just like a new gun should"

I see no reason that we should have less than excellent news when the guns are tested for emmission after cathode activation.

So it looks like history was made today. I guess all collectors everywhere will have to mark October 24 2009 as a national holiday.

John and I would like to say THANK YOU for all the support and encouragement that that we have received from the collector community over the many years this project has taken. We will continue to update the collector community as things develop.

Bob Galanter and John Folsom
The 15GP22 Project

Yay!!!!!! :banana:

Congrats are in order! John, I can't wait to see the picture on that tube.
Bill Cahill

woohoo!

This is GREAT news!

Wonderful!!!

Bruce

You and John deserve the thanks of the entire collecting community. We really appreciate your massive contribution to the hobby, and to the preservation of history. Our great grandchildren will now be able to see CT-100s and other early color sets working.

You guys are awesome!! Congradulations!!

:beerchug::grnbounce:banana::grnbounce:beerchug:

Congratulations! :thmbsp: Like others, I'm anxiously awaiting the results of the activations on Monday and the first images.

I'm curious about the tesla spark test. What's the procedure?

Let's see, Scotty has other plans this weekend and Iowa is playing Michigan State tonight. Where might he be? :scratch2:

John

Hi John,

The Tesla spark procedure is a hand held HIgh frequency high voltage generator. It has a metal probe about 4 inches long by 1/2" diameter and tapered to apoint.

The probe is placed against the neck of the tube, and if the tube is gassy, the neck of the tube will fluoresce. No fluorescence=good vacuum

Crude, but for crt quality purposes, it is good enough.

This is what it looks like

http://sciencekit.com/high-frequency-tesla-coil/p/IG0024295/

Bob

That's wonderful! I couldn't believe that Scotty was going to make us wait until Monday. Congratulations on a well-deserved success to all involved in this. I look forward to seeing this tube lighting up the night again with some of that great full-gamut color!

Great News! :banana::yes::banana::thmbsp::banana::yes::banana:

jr

Congratulations mate!!!! :):):) This is bloody awesome news!!! :) With a successful tube rebuilding plant happening, imagine how many CT-100 sets can be restored to working order and other CTC sets and even other brands of early colour sets if the same principle can be used for their picture tubes :). Anyways I'm so glad to know these historic tubes can be rebuilt and I look forward to hearing more success stories with your tube rebuilding plant in the near future! :)

Congratulations and thanks for all you do!!

Congratulations! Always great to hear success stories on in-depth technical projects! Look forward to seeing the CRT in operation.

Bob, John,

Total Congratulations! for success at the end of the Yellow Brick Road, to quote the NG's favorite movie.

Like everyone else, just aching to see pictures!

Kudos! to you guys for the obstination in the face of adversity and persisting with the effort during these long years.

As more tubes are rebuilt, it will be interesting to see if RCA modified the phosphor formulation during the brief lifespan of the 15G.

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France

PS: 02:27AM here (yawn) ;-)

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

Hi John,

The Tesla spark procedure is a hand held HIgh frequency high voltage generator. It has a metal probe about 4 inches long by 1/2" diameter and tapered to apoint.

The probe is placed against the neck of the tube, and if the tube is gassy, the neck of the tube will fluoresce. No fluorescence=good vacuum

Crude, but for crt quality purposes, it is good enough.

This is what it looks like

http://sciencekit.com/high-frequency-tesla-coil/p/IG0024295/

Bob

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

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

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. :)

If you are using rebuilt 15GP22 guns, which can't be cheap to rebuild, Don't waste them on tubes that are known leakers. Concentrate on rebuilding tubes that are under vacuum for now, maximize your success rate, improve the process, and worry about the duds that have gone to air later. I'm not sure a tube that has a leaky flange seal can ever be repaired and rebuilt satisfactorily.

Just my thoughts.

I would guess that perhaps most of the 15GP22s that need rebuilding are, in fact leakers. :(

jr

---

__________________________________________________ _________

UPDATE 10/26 5pm

I just spoke to Scotty. The news is somewhat mixed. The good news is that the rebuilding of the guns with new cathodes appears to be very good. Emission is right up there where it should be. Equal to any standard delta gun used in conventional 21" roundie color tubes. A bit slow to warm up at this point but Scotty thinks that it may "wake up" as we use it.

However we did have one slight setback. Un-beknownst to us, the getters were too close to the inside of the neck glass. And when Scotty hit the getters with the RF bomber, the heat of the red hot getters caused bubbling of the neck glass. The tube is holding vacuum, but there is a chance that when the neck heats up from prolonged use, the heating of the glass from the filiments could cause the neck glass to crack and we would lose vacuum. If that should happen, the tube would not implode, it would just go to air and we would have to rebuild it all over again. This problem is easily correctable by adjusting the position of the getter rings on the gun so they are farther away from the inside wall of the neck glass. This will be done starting with the next rebuild.

I have instructed Scotty to put the tube on his test bench and apply 6.3 volts and let it run for several day non-stop to see if the neck glass will hold. There is no point in shipping the tube to John's house only to find out that when we run the tube for a prolonged period, and the neck glass gets good and hot, that it cracks. Scotty said that he has seen this go both ways. Sometimes the bubbles will cause the neck to crack, and sometimes it will hold. Really no way to tell without giving it a good heating.

But at least we know that the guns have what appears to be excellent emmission.

I will post more information as things develop

Bob Galanter and John Folsom
The 15GP22 Project

Amazing! Congratulations guys! I really hope that the bubble in the glass holds. Fingers are crossed, again. :D

I have instructed Scotty to put the tube on his test bench and apply 6.3 volts and let it run for several day non-stop to see if the neck glass will hold.

Really do hope after all that work it's a good 'un, fingers most definitely crossed! However if trying to root out whether there is a possibility of a failure, wouldn't it be better to cycle the heaters as simply running the tube continuously won't necessarily put the kind of stress on the tube that it'd get in real use.

TTFN,
Jon

Good point. I will speak to Scotty and suggest that he run a cycle of heat up and cool down to stress the glass more like real world condions.

Thank you for the suggestion.

Bob

With the bubbles, could the yoke and convergence components even be installed OK?

The bubbles are very tiny and on the inside of the neck glass. there will be no problem with anything that needs to be mounted on the neck.

Scotty is cycling the tube off and on. 2 hours on and 2 hour off as Duke Nukem suggested. So far so good.

Bob

Tom,
An expansion on what Pete said about having the guns rebuilt: After the gun is removed, Bob Galanter uses an EDM (electro-dynamic machining) tool to mill out the old cathodes from the gun structure with micron precision. Bob built a custom jig to hold the gun assembly which allows the precision EDM machining to be done. Without Bob's expertise, the 15G project whold have come to a halt becausee the company which puts new cathodes and filaments back in ghe gun and mounts the gun on the new stem was no longer willing to attempt the difficult task of removing the old cathodes. I do not think they had access to EDM machining.

Tune in next week for final acceptance test results on the CRT rebuilt at Hawkeye.

"Tune in next week..." That's like forever! At least when you're waiting for something exciting like this.

John

Hello Gentlemen,

While-U-Wait for more news on Bob's/John's 15G, why not read a bit?

I've scanned for you 4 interesting Color TV-related articles from the RCA Lancaster factory magazine:

- Milestones in color picture tube development - H.R.Seelen
- Development of cathodoluminescent phosphors - A.L.Smith
- Gasses & Getters in color picture tubes - Turnbull/Moscony/Month/Hale
- Colorimetry & contrast performance of color picture tubes - Ehemann/Rudy

RCA Lancaster: Main Directory
http://s281.photobucket.com/albums/kk239/jhalphen/RCA%20Lancaster%2069/

For those in a hurry, the link to the Gasses & Getters article (4 pages):
http://s281.photobucket.com/albums/kk239/jhalphen/RCA%20Lancaster%2069/?action=view&current=RCALancaster-11-GassesGettersinColo.jpg

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France

Interesting Read Jerome, Thank you!

Update: The 15GP22 from Scotty has arrived at my house. :banana: No damage, all appears well. The tube has not been based yet. Bob Galanter will arrive tomorrow, so I am waiting so he does not miss any of the fun!

MAY GOD SPEED, JOHN FOLSOM.

Regards,
Terry Cheek

That's almost more beautiful than my Lovely lady Friend! Almost!
Great news!! Look forward to the first screen shots!

thanks for the articles, Jerome

I wonder if the carrier realized how many people would be angry if they broke your 15GP22?

Have fun you guys!

John

This tube was under Vacuum so what was the original problem, just weak or dead?

Eric, I think this post from an earlier thread is describing the tube in question:

http://www.videokarma.org/showpost.php?p=2064409&postcount=17

Ah, thank you, that was one really dead tube!

Erich H, Just to pick a nit, the 15GP22 just rebuilt was NOT the one Bob described. This tube was one I had which had a bad gun but was still under vacuum. This is the second time this tube has been through the rebuild sequence at Hawkeye. The first attempt failed when the stem cracked towards the end of the evacuation cycle in the oven. The newly redesigned stems we had fabricated seem to have fixed this problem. At least on a sample space of one.

Im excited to see the end result! This is great news and yes, One small step for man, one giant step for mankind indeed!!! "Kid in a candy store"!!!

Tom,
An expansion on what Pete said about having the guns rebuilt: After the gun is removed, Bob Galanter uses an EDM (electro-dynamic machining) tool to mill out the old cathodes from the gun structure with micron precision. Bob built a custom jig to hold the gun assembly which allows the precision EDM machining to be done. Without Bob's expertise, the 15G project whold have come to a halt becausee the company which puts new cathodes and filaments back in ghe gun and mounts the gun on the new stem was no longer willing to attempt the difficult task of removing the old cathodes. I do not think they had access to EDM machining.

Tune in next week for final acceptance test results on the CRT rebuilt at Hawkeye.

Thanks John........Bob's custom jig and EDM (electro-dynamic machining) was truly the breakthru on this ambitious project. I imagine the crt vendor just had to slip his new heater/cathode tube into the hole Bob bored into the original cathode cylinder?? I would be very interested in the total rebuild cost with profit. Scotty quoted me $400 for my 21FBP22 which is a slam-dunk in comparison. Tom

Any plans to video the first start... would be neat to see a dark screen come to life!!!! Just like man walking on the Moon.

:worthless

(posted from John Folsom's computer being tybed by Bob)

I arrived at John's house on Saturday afternoon around 1:30 eastern and after having a brief lunch we started our work.

The first order of business was to mount the base on the 15G and solder the wires. We then proceeded to test the crt with the Beltron. Because the cathodes had not been run through the complete activation protocol the guns tested rather low. So we ran through the cathode activation protocol that had been given to us by Scotty. That took about a half hour and after the protocol had been run we retested the 15G on the Beltron. Blue and green were fairly good but the red was still substandard. So we ran the Beltron "cleaning" protocol and VIOLA the red gun came alive.

We now had very good emission on all guns and as the next few days of operation showed, the emission got even better as we used it more.

With that done we mounted the 15G on a CBS crt truck and pulled a CT100 chassis from one of Johns sets that had been recapped some time ago.

So... the next thing to do was hook the 15G up to the CT100 chassis to do a real world test. The CT100 chassis was giving us a lot of problems. The picture the chassis was supplying was VERY bad. There was evidently something wrong with the front end of this chassis. HOWEVER, before we could get the problems in the front end of the chassis resolved, we developed a HV problem. The flyback was hotter than blazes and arcing and so we spent the next several hours replacing the CT100 flyback.

ONce again we fired up the chassis and now we had good HV and started tweeking the controls to try and get a decent picture. We were still being plagued with poor signal quality, but the crt was lighting up nicely. But the picture quality sucked. We subbed a signal from a test tuner and got a fairly decent picture so we decided that the problem was in the tuner on the ct100. So next we pulled the top section of the ct100 tuner and subbed a different tuner into the set. Still the picture quality was lacking. IN a last ditch attempt to get the chassis running we decided to do a front end IF alignment. Unfortunately that did not help much and we still had a very bad picture on the 15G.

Now two days into the project we are not getting very far so John decided we wasted enough time with the CT100 chassis and made an executive decision to abandon the CT100 chassis as a driving mechansim and go to plan "B". We decided to use John's Westinghouse H-840CK15 chassis as the driver for our tests.

So after making a number of adapter cables and setting everything up, and doing a fair amount of initial tweeking, we now had a pretty decent color and B&W picture on the new 15G.

Murphy's law states that "whatever can go wrong will go wrong" and so of course not long into our tests with the Westy chassis, we heard a big "snap" and we lose the picture on the 15G. After some brief expert diagnosing on the part of JOhn, we came upon the discovery that the 30KV 2000pf doorknob had taken a dump. But never fear, John had a spare and in about 2 more hours and a trip to Ace for some metric screws, we were up and running again.

That brings us to MOnday morning. We now have a Westy chassis that is operating and driving our newly rebuilt 15G. AFter a few hours of purity, convergence and assorted other chassis tweaks we finally had a VERY NICE picture on the new 15G.

Over all we are very pleased with the performance of the tube. We do however, have a small problem with purity. On INitial power up cold start the tube has very good purity. After it warms up, we get a shading of color shift to the green on the right side of the tube. In our opinion the purity issue is rather minor considering the brilliant Technicolor picture we are getting from it.

Future plans are for John and Bob to make another trip to Hawkeye to rebuild two more "under vacuum" duds and attempt to also seal and rebuild a leaker. We are hoping to make the next attempts before the end of the year, or very shortly after the beginning of the new year.

Before we do that, however, we will need to have more gun assemblies rebuilt. Will be proceeding with that as soon as possible

The actual image on the rebuilt crt is far far better than these photos show. We tried over and over to get some screen shots that looked as good as the crt looks in person, but we could not get any shots that looked very good.

So there you have it. The 15G is rebuild-able.

John Folsom and Bob Galanter

WOW what a saga!

BRAVO!!!! :banana::yes::banana::thmbsp::banana:

Good work !!!

jr

Zowie! You guys are having way too much fun.

Phil

woa.. wholly hell. the first successful 15GP rebuild ever. bravo. Oh, btw, IT LIVES!

Quite an accomplishment!

The first rebuild in Modern Times.

Do some celebrating tonight.

Ed

The "end of the yellow brick road." How apropos! Nice color too.

John

Kewl !! A miracle about on the same order of magnitude as the Loaves 'n' Fishies, if you're an old TV nut...(grin)

Fantastic job, and, brilliant color! Great job, guys!!!!! :banana:
Bill Cahill

I can imagine you guys were wanting to pull your hair out while trying to deal with the CT100!

"We're so close... so close... and now we have to deal with chassis issues!!"

You guys get the gold star this week... that's for sure! Those pics are great!

I just got a chance to read up and look at the pictures. Congratulations Bob, John and Scotty on a job not ever done by anyone else in modern times. Truly amazing work guys!

Fantastic! Thanks for all your work on this, and thanks for not giving up.

Shucks folks,I'm speechless!!!

Like breaking the 4-minute mile - now we know it can be done!

Hoorah!

Congratulations on seeing a real payoff from all of your work, Bob and John.

Great work guys.
I'm really proud of you and your accomplishment.

Long Live The 15GP22!

Regards,
Terry Cheek

Wow that is just fantastic news! We all knew you guys could do it! :thmbsp:

One question, Was this the same gun that went through the partial rebuild previously when the stem broke? or was this another gun assembly?

I've really enjoyed this sort of "back to the future" thread! Congratulations.

Reece

Bob and I have spent some time tweaking the Westinghouse 15" color set driving the rebuilt 15GP22. While there are still some unexplained purity defects, mainly in the reg/green domain, when displaying a color picture these artifacts are less noticeable

We are going to declare victory. :banana:

Bob and I have now move on to playing with the Mitsubishi Trinescope color TV. Bob has given a demo course in can capacitor re-stuffing, and we are just about ready to give the little set a try.

John and Bob,

Congratulations on your accomplishment.

It's an honor to know you guys.

Pete

Wow that is just fantastic news! We all knew you guys could do it! :thmbsp:

One question, Was this the same gun that went through the partial rebuild previously when the stem broke? or was this another gun assembly?

We do not know for sure. We have a number of guns in the Q and we are not certain if this is that same gun or not. Our inclination is that it is not the same gun, because that gun was sent via USPS to the gun rebuilder and it is currently unacounted for.

I've been holding my breath (and tongue) awaiting the test results. Now that they are in...

http://bestanimations.com/Holidays/Fireworks/Fireworks-10-june.gif

HOORAY!

Congratulations and much thanks to John and Bob for their success. This project was discussed at the first ETF convention in early 2003, now here we are in late 2009. That's determination! :thmbsp:

Where and how do we line up to join the rebuild parade?

Step 1: Send your check to Bob & John. Don't bother to fill in the amount, we will do that later!

Wow, don't know how I missed page 4 with all the great pics and information yesterday. Congratulations Bob and John on the first rebuild of a 15GP22, and best luck with the Mitsubishi!
Cliff

"What's the matter, Sir Guy? Run out of hangings?"

"I know a ripe subject for one!"

Love the "Adventures of Robin Hood" still.

Great Job. Congrats to You Gents.

Lee J Barmakian:smoke:

Hey Guys,

Just got caught up on my VK viewing. WOW! super kudos to both of you and Scotty as well.

Persistence does pay off.

-Steve D.

Cudo's to everyone involved in this project! Your persistence has really paid off.

Not to put a wet blanket on this, but isn't Scotty supposed to be retiring like really soon? Is this something that might be transferable to the equipment at the ETF?

Darryl

Not to put a wet blanket on this, but isn't Scotty supposed to be retiring like really soon?

OMG let's not even think about this. If it doesn't get mentioned, then hopefully Scotty will forget all about retiring!!

Not to put a wet blanket on this, but isn't Scotty supposed to be retiring like really soon? In discussions with Scotty, this does not appear to be a stumbling block in terms of likely 15GP22 rebuilds. However, there's never a guarantee, and my information is months old.

Pete

First, thanks to all the kind words from the VK community. It has been a long road to this first successful rebuild. But it has been a lot of fun getting there.

Scotty is not likely to retire in the near future (months/year), but several years out is anybody's guess. And Scotty may not the the short pole in the tent. The era of he CRT is coning to an end, and our stem supplier or the vendor who replaces the cathodes and filaments in the gun and remounts it on the stem could go away at any time. And Bob's EDM process is vital to having guns rebuilt as well.

So Bob and I are going to attempt a couple of more under vacuum rebuilds, and Bob is going to try a leaker tube using his sealing protocol. We will attempt to do this in as timely a manner as possible.

Depending on the results, we will then consider the path forward. More to come......

this process must be perfected and carried on into the future.congrats on rebuild.i hope this is the first of many to come!

This is truly amazing. Excellent work guys!

I assume that you've come up with a sealing method to prevent the newly rebuilt tube from leaking, correct? That was the major achillies heel of the 15GP22 in the first place - faulty seals letting all the vacuum out.

I'm really interested to see how a rebuild goes on a tube that's already up to air (i.e. most of the other 15GP22's). In theory, since the guns are getting rebuilt, it should work - the stumbling block being possible phosphor degredation due to oxidization over the years.

-Ian

Ian,

There is no verified method for preventing rebuilt tubes from developing a leak, or for stopping the leak in a tube so it can be rebuilt. If our leak mitigation protocol works out, then the answer may be "yes".

The tube just rebuilt (a non-leaker) was treated with vacseal. Of course, we will never know if it does any good, we can only know if it does not.

Congratulations on the effort. You took off with the ideas and support of the community and landed safely. Just passed your check ride. Nice to see a really great picture! Of course, it's understandable rebuilding 15GP22 that old might only last a month, a year, or maybe the next 50+ years. At least, knowledge and practical skills have been demonstrated. This is definitely worth celebrating !!!! :thmbsp:

Im speechless! Bravo gentleman!! This is truely an amazing breakthrough!

I was able to visit John and see it in person, very impressive picture indeed.

:yes:

Just a note to let you know we aren't sleeping on the job.

Over the past couple of weeks since our initial success, John and I have been collecting and preparing 15GP22 electron gun asemblies.

John removed, and contributed 4 gun assemblies from his crt stash, and I was able to contribute 3 from my stash.

Yesterday I finished the EDM processing of the last gun and all seven guns were shipped to the gun rebuilder for eventual instalation of new cathode assemblies and mounting on new stems.

We have ordered a second batch of stems from the stem manufacturer, and we have a production date of about December 15th.

We have instructed the gun rebuilder to rebuild 3 more guns and mount them on new stems. Those guns will be shipped to Scotty when finished. Scotty has 1 rebult gun in his possession already, so we will have a total of 4 guns on the next trip to Hawkeye. We have not set a date for that trip yet, but we are hopefull that it will happen in December.

We will be rebuilding 2 under vacuum 15G's and preparing a couple leakers for some High Vacuum leak experiments that we will be conducting with John Yurkon at his facility.

We are very excited to be working with John Yurkon. He is making available to us, High Vacuum scientific equipment at his facility, that will hopefully be able to tell us if sealing the leakers is feasable. By using the instrumentation in John Yurkon's lab, we should be able to determine if we are able to seal the crt's do a degree that will hold a long term vacuum. The only other way to determine if we can seal these tubes would be to actually rebuild and seal some tubes, and then wait to see if they leak. That could take anywhere from hours to many years. In John Yurkon's lab we should be able to detect the degree of leakage before and after we seal a tube, to determine if the sealing method we are using is successsful. John Yurkon works in an ultra high tech scientific facility that makes targets for use in a linear accellerator at the National Super Conducting Labratory in East Lansing Michigan. Here is a link to their web site. http://www.nscl.msu.edu/

We can't begin to thank John Yurkon enough for his assistance in this project. With John's help we should be able to determine if sealing the leakers is possible or not.

Bob

This is simply incredible!