RCA Color CRT Manufacture

[Penthode]

Someone has kindly posted a series of very interesting early RCA films on YouTube. Here is one from the mid sixties providing an overview of the tube manufacture.

RCA COLOR Picture Tube Manufacturing
https://youtu.be/7IrSLPVkxCo

[bluenorm]

very nice rca presentation.

[old_tv_nut]

Most complete film on color tube manufacture I have seen. I was surprised, though, by how many potential contamination points had workers without caps or hairnets - even in a so-called "clean room."

[Tom9589]

Could you please list some more of the other early RCA films on YouTube? This one on CRT manufacture was outstanding.

I once toured Video Display Corporation's B&W CRT rebuilding facility and was likewise amazed at the possible contamination during the rebuilding process.

I guess it was clean where it mattered. Every CRT I got from them was a top performer.

[DavGoodlin]

Awesome film, Map out: 1000 New Holland avenue, 17601 for the building at 2:40 there by the RR tracks running both east and west, still in use as commercial property.

Often, obits from the Intelligencer often mention the retirees' without much more than "RCA".

Many local folks worked there until the GE regime parsed out what they wanted and sold to Thomsen then Buhrle.

Im still amazed at how few old RCA color sets turn up here.

[MIPS]

Hmm, the audio drops out and comes back about 90% of the way through. That's probably the first time I've seen a contentID match on an old film like that.

[kvflyer]

I grew up in Baltimore, MD and Lancaster was a stone's throw away. Gosh, had I only know about this "Back in the day". I imagine they had some kind of tours at one time.

[Popester]

Very good film. Looks like women were used a great deal in the electronics industry for delicate work. Maybe they had better patience when it came to detailed work than men. Sony factory film I’ve seen was similar with mostly women working the assembly line of installing the components on the pc boards.

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by Popester

Very good film. Looks like women were used a great deal in the electronics industry for delicate work. Maybe they had better patience when it came to detailed work than men. Sony factory film I’ve seen was similar with mostly women working the assembly line of installing the components on the pc boards.

"Better at delicate work," but also paid less than a man would have been at the same skill level. (Especially true in Japan. One of the reasons Japan developed bigger industrial robots is because it replaced the over-valued labor of men doing unskilled but heavy work.)

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by kvflyer

I grew up in Baltimore, MD and Lancaster was a stone's throw away. Gosh, had I only know about this "Back in the day". I imagine they had some kind of tours at one time.

I would have liked a tour too, but I suspect it's wishful thinking. The only industrial tours I recall as a kid were auto plants and the like, where the factory was big enough to confine the tourists to viewing areas where they were safe from production operations and production operations were safe from them.

I do know, for example, that Motorola and Rauland/Zenith treated some parts of their CRT production as trade secrets, as did others. A simple example: the speed at which the CRT faceplate was rotated as the phosphor slurry was applied.

[kvflyer]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

I would have liked a tour too, but I suspect it's wishful thinking. The only industrial tours I recall as a kid were auto plants and the like, where the factory was big enough to confine the tourists to viewing areas where they were safe from production operations and production operations were safe from them.

I do know, for example, that Motorola and Rauland/Zenith treated some parts of their CRT production as trade secrets, as did others. A simple example: the speed at which the CRT faceplate was rotated as the phosphor slurry was applied.

I certainly cannot disagree with you. Let me give you and example. As a kid, I often went to the Hershey Chocolate plant on tours. I distinctly remember a rather rotund lady working on the Kiss line. She would snatch out the ones that were not wrapped properly (maybe eating them??? )

But they shut down that tour and now you only get what I will call a virtual tour. Guinness Brewery in Dublin did the same thing. I was very fortunate to have gone through that brewery years ago when you actually toured the plant.

May I go OT, please? I know that many of us live technology and some are pilots. I have toured the Pipe Aircraft Factory in Vero Beach, Florida two times. It is great! I even got to talk to a guy who was working there when our plane came down the line and he would have worked on our starboard wing. (The pandemic has closed down tours right now) I love tours.

[etype2]

Originally Posted by kvflyer

I certainly cannot disagree with you. Let me give you and example. As a kid, I often went to the Hershey Chocolate plant on tours. I distinctly remember a rather rotund lady working on the Kiss line. She would snatch out the ones that were not wrapped properly (maybe eating them??? )

But they shut down that tour and now you only get what I will call a virtual tour. Guinness Brewery in Dublin did the same thing. I was very fortunate to have gone through that brewery years ago when you actually toured the plant.

May I go OT, please? I know that many of us live technology and some are pilots. I have toured the Pipe Aircraft Factory in Vero Beach, Florida two times. It is great! I even got to talk to a guy who was working there when our plane came down the line and he would have worked on our starboard wing. (The pandemic has closed down tours right now) I love tours.

It would have been great to attend a Lancaster tour. OT, In Wisconsin, I was given a tour of the Marquette Medical School by a medical student friend. There I saw cadavers in various states of dissection, a bit much for a 16 year old.