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  #46  
Old 02-03-2012, 04:11 PM
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Once again, I would like to see whether people are willing to pool together a shipment to RACS. I have a 20BP4 which I am willing to pay RACS to rebuild, but I'm not too excited to pay even more than the rebuild cost for shipping the CRT there and back. Pooling a shipment will split the shipping cost and make things far more reasonable.

Otherwise, I suspect my 20BP4 will be crunched sometime in the next couple or years, since it takes up a lot of space.

I've been ready for several years to pay RACS to rebuild; the shipping cost has been the impediment. Finding the money is not the issue; it just simply seems wasteful to pay $2000+ for one tube rebuild, over half of which is shipping cost.
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  #47  
Old 02-03-2012, 08:51 PM
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Tom,

John Folsom and myself contracted a local box maker to construct special heavy duty tri-wall corregated boxes with special inserts to hold the 15GP22 tubes. We are quite certain that they will be strong enough to make a round trip via FedEx air freight to RACS and back. We are figuring about $300 each way. We do not feel that is to much considering the value of the tube.

Your 20bp4 is almost as rare and valuable. If I were you I would contract a local box maker to work with you to create a strong shipping container with the correct types of inserts to hold your tube and send it off.
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  #48  
Old 02-03-2012, 09:38 PM
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Update on the 15GP22 project

Well gang it is now crunch time.

John Folsom and I have been formulating a game plan for our project.

As has been discussed previously, through our experiments with our Helium mass spectrometer leak detector, John and I have be able to determine that the pesky leaks that send most all the 15GP22 tubes to air, occur in the weld that joins the 2 halves of the ultor ring. John and I have discussed several approaches to "healing" the leaks, and the three approaches that seem to hold the most promise are:

1. Nickel plating
2. Frit Glass
3. Vac Seal

For the past several weeks I have been working with a local electroplater to try and devise a method to nickel plate the weld on the ultor ring. Today I got samples back from the plater and they "look" good, but we need to do a couple more experiments to see if this will actually accomplish what we want. So the first test will be to place the plated samples of the ultor ring in an oven at 650F for several hours to see if the nickel plating will hold up to the temperature of the rebuilding oven at RACS. We need to test the Nickel plating to see if it will have a tendency to flake off when we heat it in the rebuilding oven. I will be performing this test on Sunday afternoon. If the plating passes the test, then on Wednesday Feb 8th, I will be taking a 15Gp22 dud which as been tested for leaks and is marked where the leaks are located, to the plater to be nickel plated.

That nickel plated tube, and a second tube which has also been leak tested and found to have leaks on the weld, will then be packed up and air freighted off to RACS. The second tube that was NOT nickel plated will be a guinea pig for the VacSeal experiment. In this experiment, we will have RACS use VacSeal to coat the weld on the ultor ring and then cure the VacSeal in their oven for 1 hour at 500F. Then Racs will apply frit glass to both the nickel plated and the VacSeal tubes just as they did for the tube that RACS and Jerome Halpern successfully rebuilt 2 years ago and shipped to ETF convention. We have 2 rebuilt gun assemblies ready to ship along with these two tubes.

We also have a crate of 4 more 15GP22 duds ready to ship by ocean freight, and that crate will be leaving for France before very long.

Also in anticipation of Southwest Vacuum closing(the company that rebuilds the electron gun assemblies), John and I have sent a shipment of 12, 15GP22 guns and glass stems to Southwest for rebuilding, with instruction to rebuild as many guns as can be rebuilt within our limited budget of $3000.

We are hopeful that we can seal the leaks on the weld of the ultor ring, and that we will now be able to successfully rebuild the 15GP22 leakers. Only time and lot of money will be able to determine if we will be successful.

The one thing we know for sure is this, All along the entire tv restoration community had no idea that it was the weld on the ultor ring that was causing the tubes to go gassy. These defective welds are why, even before John and I made our attempts at rebuilding, the previous attempts 20 or 30 years ago failed.

Now that we know the leaky welds need to be addressed in order to get the tube to hold a vacuum for the long haul, we have a chance of finally solving the problem of the 15GP22's that will not hold a good vacuum.

A photo of the nickel plated ultor ring sample is displayed below for your eyes to gaze upon. Very shiny and smooooooth along the weld. Because of the way plating works, the nickel wants to plate onto the area that is closest to the nickel anodes that hang on the sides of the plating tank. That just happens to be the weld on the edge of the ultor ring. So the nickel builds up nice and thick and shiny and very smooth on the weld. Hopefully the nickel plating will seal the leaks in the weld.

We think we are finally very close to solving the problem and successfully rebuilding these tubes. Think good thoughts that the nickel plating passes the oven test on Sunday afternoon.

Bob and John
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  #49  
Old 02-04-2012, 12:05 AM
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Hi Bob,

No problem to create a suitable shipping box (I actually have one already). The issue is that for one tube, I will pay $1000+ shipping. You're shipping four tubes, that's why each is $300 apiece. I would be OK to pay $300 shipping, but I need others with whom to split the shipping cost.

I looked into this a while back, and basically the unit size for shipping is one pallet. A pallet can hold a lot of CRTs, and the cost will be similar, whether for one or many.

Last edited by Tom Albrecht; 02-04-2012 at 12:08 AM.
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  #50  
Old 02-04-2012, 11:30 AM
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Tom,

The $300 one way was for one tube via air freight. Yours is probably more due to "dimensional weight" because your shipping carton is no doubt larger than the ones we had made for the 15G.

We don't have quotes on the crate of 4 tubes, but we are hoping between $400 and $700 door to door one way by truck and boat.
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  #51  
Old 02-04-2012, 11:38 AM
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Bob,

The boxes you had built for the tubes is without the new guns installed, right? I hope they will still be tall enough to hold the rebuilt tubes, which will be taller once rebuilt. Just something to think about, in case you hadn't already.
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  #52  
Old 02-04-2012, 05:39 PM
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Yes Nick,

The boxes are made so there is about a 4" space between the end of the neck of the rebuilt tube and the inside top of the carton. I have a good 15G packed in one of the boxes sitting in my living room. If you plan to take your proto tube to convention you might want to pack it in one of our boxes for safe transport when we go down there.
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  #53  
Old 02-04-2012, 06:13 PM
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I'm in. Let me know what is the best way to get the CRT to plating/shipping central. Can I add a 10AP4?

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Last edited by Dave A; 02-04-2012 at 06:14 PM. Reason: typo
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  #54  
Old 02-05-2012, 12:25 AM
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We aren't that far along yet Dave. We still have bugs to work out of the system and then there is the issue of Southwest Vacuum closing their doors. If we get the bugs out of the process, and if we are able to seal the leaks by one method or another, and successfully rebuild 15GP22's, then John and I are going to send all of our dud tube inventory to France to rebuild our tubes first.

The biggest hurdle will be gun rebuilding after SW vacuum closes their doors. It is already too late for anyone to send guns in for rebuilding. John and I got our stash of guns into SW VAcuum just in the nick of time; 3 days before the deadline. The window of opportunity ended on January 31st. There is a small possibility that RACS may be open to rebuilding gun assemblies, because they have the skill to do this but we have been informed that it is VERY labor intensive. If RACS rebuilds a gun it may be very costly if they are even willing to do it.

But everything is speculation at this point. We need to prove we can successfully fix the leaky bulbs and make the tubes hold a good solid vacuum. If we can't do that, then all bets are off. Just give us a little more time to test the process. We will report our success or failures to the group as soon as we have any information either positive or negative.

I am going to test the nickel plating in an oven tomorrow to see if the plating is going to flake off of the ultor ring in the oven at 650F for several hours. I will report on that test tomorrow.
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  #55  
Old 02-05-2012, 01:55 AM
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I have a 15G too , we must see if someone at SW can do more guns so that every tube can be saved and we can get more Economy-of-Scale (at RACS) - and thus lower prices on rebuilding all remaining stock.
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  #56  
Old 02-05-2012, 03:57 PM
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Results of the oven test for the nickel plating went fairly well. The heavy plating on the actual weld did not flake off or blister at 650F in an electric furnace. I held the dwell temperature at 650F for 2 hours and used a slow cool down of 30 minutes to room temp. I am relatively happy with the results.

The next step is to prepare an actual tube for nickel plating on Wednesday. AFter that is accomplished I will have to test the tube to see if we have cured the vacuum leaks. If we have cured the weld leaks then the tube will be sent to RACS to be rebuilt.
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  #57  
Old 02-05-2012, 06:13 PM
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Great news, does the Glass have to be covered to do the plating or since it's non conductive does it matter?
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  #58  
Old 02-05-2012, 06:52 PM
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Do you think these techniques will also work to cure the leaks on the 21AXP22 CRTs ?
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  #59  
Old 02-05-2012, 09:39 PM
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The glass does not have to be covered, but part of the ultor ring, where RACS will deposit frit glass in the "trough" behind the bulge on the ultor ring, must be masked off so it will not get nickel plated. That area must stay as unplated Kovar so the frit will bond nicely with the ultor ring.

RE: 21AXP22, there is no reason that this method of nickel plating the weld on a 21AX shouldn't also work on the 21" tube. However a lot more masking will be needed, and the weld flange will also have to be sand blasted prior to plating so it will plate properly.

MInd you this is still speculative. We still have to plate the ultor ring on a 15G tube and then use our helium leak detector to see if we have fixed the weld leaks. If the tube is still leaking, then we are back to square one and nickel plating is not the solution to the problem if the tube still leaks.

So lets not count our chickens before they hatch. I know everyone is hopeful, but John and I have been here before, only to have our high hopes dashed and crashed into a million pieces. This is not a sure thing at this point and even if we find that the nickel plating sealed the leaks, we still have to do a successful rebuild at RACS to actually prove that the nickel plating solves our problems.

At this point all I know for sure is that the nickel plating seems like it will be able to endure the 650F temperature of the evacuation oven if we get to the point of rebuilding a tube.

More posts will follow as soon as I have more to report.
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  #60  
Old 02-08-2012, 02:36 PM
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Nickel Plating Today

As promised, I am reporting on the nickel plating of the 15G. Monday and Tuesday I spent time preparing the ultor ring for todays plating attempt. The area behind the bump on the ultor ring needed to be "masked" with a special material that prevents plating. We need to prevent the plating of the Kovar where RACS will be applying frit glass on the glass to metal interface area.

So I obtained a gallon of a material that is something like contact cement. It is orange in color and you paint it on with a small paint brush to the areas that will not be plated. It took 3 coats to get good coverage. Each coat needs to dry a minimum of 3 to 4 hours before re-coating. You can see the orange masking material on the ultor ring in the attached photos.

AFter the masking was completed I sealed off the end of the neck of the crt and made up a special cable with a couple heavy allegator clamps and a battery clamp from a set of automobile jumper cables. I used 2 strands of #10 stranded wire for a total capability of at least 60 amps.

At noon today I took the tube over to Exclusive Metal Finishing and Steve and I proceeded to plate the 15G ultor ring.

Step one was a short soak in hot alkaline cleaner, then a clear water rinse. Then we went into an acid electro clean tank with reverse polarity current at about 5 amps. Then rinse and into the sulfamate nickel electroplating tank. This solution is heated to about 130F and it is air agitated as you can see in the photo. Notice the beautiful emerald green of the plating solution. We plated at about 50 amps for 40 minutes. Plating looks rather nice so far and appears to be quite heavily plated.

We are scheduled to do the leak testing with the Helium mass spectrometer leak detector this weekend to see if the plating has sealed the leaks. This tube was previously leak tested and was found to have 3 leaks and we marked the location of the leaks so we know where to look for them.

I will report back with the results of the leak testing as soon as it is completed.
Attached Images
File Type: jpg IMG_2683.jpg (99.3 KB, 95 views)
File Type: jpg IMG_2688.jpg (87.5 KB, 87 views)
File Type: jpg IMG_2684.jpg (83.7 KB, 88 views)
File Type: jpg IMG_2679.jpg (82.6 KB, 94 views)
File Type: jpg IMG_2691.jpg (86.8 KB, 62 views)
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Last edited by ohohyodafarted; 02-08-2012 at 09:22 PM. Reason: added photo of nickel plating with masking removed
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