If the outside isn't grounded well, you can get a nice static 'jolt' off it. Ask me how I know. Also the silver coating has a habit of flaking off, so the static charge has no where to go. Solution as with glass is to apply dag.

Not sure what you mean "Maybe the original went to air, that early". The set was 17 years old at the time of the replacement. That was a tremendous life for the original tube.

Funny that the conversion kit was only $15. if that were now, would probably be $200.

Ditto on tube life. By the time I found my CTC-4, it had like 3 hang tags in it for CRT replacement. Amazingly, the last one was dates '73 or something like that.

Just curious, were your folks smokers?

Tobacco soot + high voltage can really collect dust in a hurry (we've all seen what smokers sets look like inside!) so if they were that might account for the frequent problems.

I with you on that.. I'll probably plug in the set I just got from ebay that got totally destroyed during shipping.. Watch it go up in smoke.. Hell, I may even help it..

On my Wingate (ctc-5) there was a crack in the plastic, the arc from the metal cone shot up thru that to the dag on the plastic. I had a spare plastic shroud so I just replaced it, I did seal the orig with some silicone but never tried it out.

I have another ctc-5 (metal cabinet faux blonde finish IIRC) that has the special chassis, not the delux like the wingate has. I really need to get on that one and see if its ok. I got it from a local guy, mainly as a back up CRT, as he said he never had it going and was told it had a bad flyback, but I have heard that so many times and found that not to be the case. It looks OK so I am hopeful it will be fine.

And I second that, my Gramma had one of these!:D Congrats!

I was referring to the set with the AX to the CY conversion. It might've been a service contract replacement. Color CRT rebuilding, in the late 50's, wasn't as common as B/W rebuilding. Also, the mortality rate of rebuilding any metal coned CRT was poor and the prices reflected it. They were a lot more expensive, than they're all-glass counterparts.
The 24's, 27's and 30's, only had a six month warrantee. :sigh:

My father smoked. Maybe that was the cause of the problem. Thankfully, I never picked up the habit.