Can you rob the housing from a donor pot?

Pretty sure that normal operation of the CTC-5 chassis was more like 19-22kV with the optimal reading being 20kV. This chassis is the one everyone complains about having lower HV.

I checked my donor chassis and parts bins. I got nothing close so far.

Duct tape.


On the horizontal setup, follow the procedure outline in Sams/RCA literature. First thing is to make sure you dip the efficiency coil for minimum reading on the cathode of the HOT, then set 6BK4 current for .8ma with brightness at minimum, which should give you an anode voltage of 20kv or somewhere in that ballpark. But from experience, you'll probably want to set the 6BK4 a little less than that to give you some headroom on the anode. My Wingate was so weak I could disconnect the shunt tube and still struggle to get strong HV to the picture tube. Just the way it is.

If you'd rather wait, it's gonna be a month till I'm back around and BTW I won't be available Saturday till later on in the evening. So if you can't make it down here for a drop off/training session this Saturday around 6pm, we probably won't be able to get together till I get back as I have plans with the family that's going to take up the rest of my labor day time off. Let me know.

If the pot and chassis are not aluminum you could try soldering. I've got a 150W iron (probably meant for soldering gutters together) that can do jobs like that.

Doubtful, I have a 230w Weller hat struggles with heavy gauge chassis metal.

If it is a gun it probably will not work as well as an iron of the same or close wattage. Irons should be fairly close to 100% efficiency (being resistance based), whereas those transformer based guns will loose energy in the field and connections to the tip, and also lack thermal mass in the tip. I've gotten good joints on some pretty beefy steel with mine, and I think if he tinned both surfaces individually with an iron like mine he would probably be able to make a solid joint.

I have access to a 7 parts chassis, if anything in there will work.

there is more to cathode current than just the eff coil. You should try swapping tubes in the HV (rec/damper/shunt/output) and see which give you the best low reading. a gassy tube can create havoc. Also you should check the drive signal to make sure its good.

CTC-5 update. Well I think I got all the kinks ironed out. The beefier variac seems to be able to handle running the set indefinitely at 115V. No issues there. I adjusted the horizontal sweep coil, which is now running steady at 194 mA (instead of 230 mA).

I had a wonky horizontal for a bit and think it was due to rusty and dirty ground contacts on the horizontal board. Popped it out, cleaned them up and horizontal came back and has been rock solid ever since. I mounted the blue gun vertical amp/tilt control pots with some epoxy to the chassis. Seems to have worked well. I watched several hours of football on Saturday and Sunday without any issues. I placed a small muffin fan inside the cabinet aimed at the power transformer and two rectifier tubes. Boy, that really helps keep them WAY cooler while the set is operating.

Loving it!!! Below is a video link and some photos for your enjoyment. The photos seem to white-wash the picture a bit. Looks better in person.

I feel extremely lucky to have my first vintage color restore come out this well, especially on a CTC-5. Think the like-new, rebuilt in 1968, 21AXP22 has a lot to do with it. Supposedly it was never used after it was rebuilt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4ZNEQDVRNM

Great job Al! I like how that tuner just pulls WJLA-TV right out of the air - Its tuned to ch 7, right?:D

I have to tune my RCA's to 3 and hook up some silly box:sigh:

Ha!! I wish it was that easy Dave. I have DirecTV hooked up to my agile modulator (which broadcasts out analog channel 7). I built a dipole antenna for channel 7 frequency for the modulator to transmit with.

I remember now, its in the same room ten feet away :stupid:

I have mods for channel 5 and 7, not set up yet until I find a UHF BT-AM60 or such. About half my 52-64 sets have UHF.

And that "new" Color set of yours has it too!

Does the Arliss have knobs on the controls behind the pencil box?
 

I also have a CTC-5 Arliss and was wondering the controls behind the pencil box have knobs on them besides the horizontal hold?

There are no knobs located behind the CTC-5 pencil box. However, no shortage of pots many dual function some within the customer controls.

-Steve D.