Other than the cost of tooling, the technology involved is old technology. I'm sure with today's production capabilities, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that tubes like the 15 and 21 inch could be brought back to life. The Russians and Chinese did it with receiving tubes.

If any of you order and get a plasma panel that's too large don't worry, I have a plasma cutter.:D

I actually think one could potentially turn a small profit on a run of 500+ 21" round color CRTs. ISTR later CRT sets costing around $300 to consumers...The CRT was only part of that cost so they might be a bit cheaper. Rebuilts cost around $300 IIRC. If one could get a new CRT for less than rebuilts went for I could see selling them in decent quantity...Especially seeing as many of us are running CRTs in more than one set that are between kinda-dim and unusable.

Set up is the killer on such a plan. There's an old adage, that the very first example of a product costs millions to build, when factoring in R&D, the cost of setting up a production line, etc

The second example to run off the line cost next to nothing. Obviously actual accounting practices don't create situations like this, but the point still stands. Even a run of say 500+ 21FBP22s would be prohibitively expensive initially. The cost of getting things set up. Actually building them would probably be rather cheap.

Uh, unlike the USA, the Russians and the Chinese never quit making vacuum tubes, so the technology didn't have to be re-invented.

CRT Guns
 

Guys,
I may be way off here but wouldn't this be a place to ask a manufacturer to produce some replacement GUNS for the rare CRT's? I don't know enough about the specs required but I know some of you do. If I knew enough I would pursue this since it seems the ETF has been able to rebuild tubes. Just a thought.

Dennis