Cataract repairs - are we missing the safety glass aspect?

[Electronic M]

I hold the opinion that based on design evolution there is no significant danger to caulking the glass on at the edges...Allow me to explain my basis for that statement.

I will use roundy color sets as an example. In the beginning, the 21AXP22/21CYP22 sets had a completely separate (from the CRT with a big air gap) planar safety glass that consisted of two planar sheets of glass laminated together. (This was consistent to precautions in monochrome sets before and up thru that time period.) Next came the 21FBP22 (the original CRTs that never developed cataracts are these)...It also had a safety glass that was not glued to the CRT, but this glass was curved. It had a rubber gasket around the edge (to minimise dust ingress) that spaced it a fraction of an inch away from the CRT face...This curved glass was not laminated. There was just a single curved layer of glass. No one ever worries about implosion with an FB in their TV. Next came the 21FJP22 which was the same as the FB except they replaced the air gap and rubber gasket with glue...
They would not have switched from the laminated planar glass to the curved single sheet glass if there was a significant reduction in safety (and bodies like UL would have given them grief). When the FJ came out the FB did not disappear, but rather for several years makers used both types simultaneously/interchangeably in their sets as sam's parts lists, and tube layouts support. If there was a marked improvement in safety with the FJ then the FB should have rapidly vanished...It did not.

Based on the above I believe that removing the original glue of an FJ and caulking the safety glass back on is no different than converting an FJ over to being an FB type, and thus the safety factor should be the same as the FB CRTs (which everyone considers safe). Maybe the original glue makes it somewhat better, but lack of that glue only sets it back to another design that passed safety standards of the time well enough for the two to be made alongside each other for years... I also feel it is reasonable to carry that logic over to other types of cataracted CRTs.

Every night I sleep with a caulked CRT ~3' from the foot of my bed, and I don't lose a wink of sleep over it. I plan to keep using the caulk method indefinitely.


One thing I've seen/have is a vintage rebuilt roundy color CRT (labels are gone) that had the glass foam taped on...So it was a standard practice of the day too.


If someone wants to bond their glass back on and can find a cost-effective product or wants to spend the money on something expensive then more power to them....However, I'd like them to consider one thing: At some point, your new glue is probably going to fail....Have you selected a glue that is practical/economical for a user to remove like the original, or have you doomed the tube to looking terrible for some unknown period of time (possibly forever) at some point in the future?
This type of change should be reversible for the sake of the set and the future generations of owners of the set!