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  #16  
Old 11-30-2007, 01:19 PM
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Phil Nelson Phil Nelson is offline
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I agree, the ETF seems like the ideal host for this project. I doubt there is significant profit to be made. If that were the case, we'd have dozens of companies still doing rebuilds, rather than one guy who already has his eye on the retirement Barcalounger.

There is value in preserving this as a living process, not just something that people read about. Imagine a conversation between TV collectors a few decades from now:

"Yeah, in the old days they even knew how to rebuild picture tubes. But nobody bothered to save the equipment, and there's nobody left who would know how to use it, anyway. Oh well, I like my old TVs as cute furniture, even if the picture tubes are all duds."

How cool would it be to see a rebuilding workshop at a future ETF convention?

Phil Nelson
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  #17  
Old 12-03-2007, 06:36 PM
dreyfoos dreyfoos is offline
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I want to bring everyone up to date on the CRT rebuilding equipment – which is now a CRT rebuilding project. I have heard from many of you and I do appreciate all the input. Special thanks for those bits and pieces of the “black art” that several of you have posted and which may prove to be critical in helping to put the puzzle together. Keep it coming. But not to me. I’m pleased to announce that Steve McVoy has taken this on as a project for the Early Television Foundation Museum in Hilliard, Ohio – a suburb of Columbus (where you can probably still find real potato chips). As I understand this would first and foremost be a preservation project – to house the equipment in a museum where it can actually be seen and inspected by every person who is interested enough to make the pilgrimage to the heavenly hills of Hilliard (I’m guessing about the heavenly part – I have yet to visit there myself).

It goes without saying that many of you, including Steve and me, would like to see this equipment achieve its intended purpose – not to go into competition with anybody – but to make an effort to see that we, as collectors, are never left high and dry when it comes to freshening up those picture tubes that will keep our collections alive – especially those which are more near and dear to us: the 3KP4, 7JP4, 10BP4/FP4, 12LP4/KP4. Well that’s as much as I can lift. But others might have larger tubes in mind and there’s always the heavy lifters – the true masochists – who have to have it brought to you in “living color”. The equipment might even be able to handle a 30BP4 for the humongous DuMont – but that’s out of my lifting league. When this equipment goes out my door, the future of it will be up to Steve. Is there any one of us who wouldn’t like to see it fired up – if nothing else to try some dry runs to make sure everything works? I’ve heard something about his plans and they sound ambitious but practical. If you have ideas or comments – then by all means send them along to Steve via info@earlytelevision.org.

Thanks to the internet we in California scanned and e-mailed the instruction manual for this equipment to Steve and he now has a link to it on the museum’s site under “restoration/rebuilding.” Perhaps it will jar your memory and elicit some more pieces to the puzzle – anybody out there ever re-phosphored a tube? Know anyone who might have?

And just remember there was a time, not so long ago, when those CRT gaskets for the Motorola 7”ers were unobtanium.

Roger Dreyfoos
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  #18  
Old 12-03-2007, 07:03 PM
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kbmuri kbmuri is offline
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You would also be guessing about the "Hills" part.

I'd still like to hear from anyone else who has this equipment or sees it for sale. I may have ruffled some feathers by suggesting a competition when all I meant was that there's zero chance I could spend any significant amount of time in Hilliard but I'd love to master the craft too, so my only solution is to get a set of my own. I really don't think the hobby would suffer by having two rebuilding sites (after Hawkeye goes by the wayside) to do our CRT servicing.

I spend a lot of time in Grand Rapids Michigan. We used to have a woodshop here (on 28th street) that was open to the public, sponsored by a lumber retailer, so that the retailer could sell more wood. Until some schmuck cut his fingers off and then the lawsuits and insurance industry put an end to it. I would caution Steve McVoy that his idea of having volunteers drop in and use such potentially lethal gear would require a pretty expensive insurance policy. Hope he's thought that through...
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  #19  
Old 12-03-2007, 07:37 PM
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Steve McVoy Steve McVoy is offline
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Of course it would be good to have more than one attempt to rebuild tubes. Not only would there be twice the likelyhood of success, but the two operations could exchange ideas. There is a more elaborate rebuilding setup for sale in Texas:

http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/daryls_tv/page2.html

I suspect it could be bought for next to nothing, since it has been for sale for ages and there have been no takers.

As for the cost of insurance, this is one of many things that makes it likely that the operation is going to be a money loser, or, at best, break even. I'm not sure that it will be feasible to rebuild tubes for collectors, but at least we'll have the equipment on display for museum visitors to see how tubes were rebuilt.
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