...remove surface scratches on the front of a CRT? I've come across many sets with badly scratched glass. Many were made that way by someone setting the tube face-first on the concrete while they harvested the yoke. I have a few rescued sets that are otherwise working except for the scratched face. It's particularly detrimental to viewing on one set.

I was thinking of some sort of resin compound that could be pressed into the scratches and smoothed over? Or is there really no way to fix this? :scratch2:

You'll need something with the same refractive index as the glass of the picture tube, to fill in the scratches. Stuff like that exists, as some LCD makers use glue like that to fill in small scratches in the glass panels when they glue on the plastic polarizer layers. That stuff for filling in small cracks in car windshields might do it.

You might try looking in forums that deal with homebuilt telescopes and lenses.

You'll need something with the same refractive index as the glass of the picture tube, to fill in the scratches. Stuff like that exists, as some LCD makers use glue like that to fill in small scratches in the glass panels when they glue on the plastic polarizer layers. That stuff for filling in small cracks in car windshields might do it.

You might try looking in forums that deal with homebuilt telescopes and lenses.

Thanks for the info. :thmbsp:

^ What he said. wa2ise has it right as usual.
There exist products which can do this job, but only glass-freaks will know the best ones.

BE CAREFUL ! I've heard/read-Prolly here-that even teeninecy scratches on CRT faces can compromise a CRT's safety.

You know, i've heard that small chips in the crt face aren't too big a concern since the front glass is over 1.75'' thick and often more.

You know, i've heard that small chips in the crt face aren't too big a concern since the front glass is over 1.75'' thick and often more.
These aren't deep enough to affect the screen's integrity...just surface scratches. The main beef I have is that they detract from the viewability.

In that case, yeah it's annoying. My '81 GE b/w 'performance' (far from it, with a near dead crt) that had the XB chassis. THIS tv had massive line-gouges on the tube and i did not once worry about implosion. just annoyances

I have a really strong 10BP4 that was stored on it's face (and slid around a lot from the looks of it) nothing short of sanding them out would help it.
I actually had considered the possibility of wet sanding the entire face of the tube but I'm afraid it would implode.

There must be something different in your water... the fools around here, they take a hammer to the back of the TV. they don't even bother taking off the back, just a sledgehammer or something to the neck area, breaking the back and neck off in the process just to steal the yoke. It angers me to no end, they killed a lovely early 90s Sony that someone put out, not 5 minutes later it was smashed

There must be something different in your water... the fools around here, they take a hammer to the back of the TV. they don't even bother taking off the back, just a sledgehammer or something to the neck area, breaking the back and neck off in the process just to steal the yoke. It angers me to no end, they killed a lovely early 90s Sony that someone put out, not 5 minutes later it was smashed

I'm somewhat lucky in that most of the sets that are 'de-yoked' around here are disassembled first. In fact, I sometimes have to look hard to see: Half the time, the sets are actually re-assembled! :D