My first vintage color set
 

Well, about 3 and a half years after getting started in this hobby I have obtained my first color set. A 1956 RCA CTC5 Arliss. Very clean cabinet. Virtually untouched chassis (counted 5 orange drop replacement caps - that's it). Rebuilt, tests like NEW on all 3 guns 21AXP22.

I am excited and crapping my pants all at the same time. :D Have plenty of members to guide me during the restoration, which is good. Enjoy the photos.

Additional photos . . .

Way to go Al! I am still looking and doubt very much I will ever find one in my area as TV broadcasting came so late here. Maybe someday I will make it down to the convention and I will be lucky enough to get one as nice as you have there!

Gregb

Nice!

One thing to watch out for is the 100ohm center convergence pots, they are often bad and VERY hard to source (dual pots with taps). Other than that its very straight forward. The 5's have a rep for weak HV, so be prepared for that when working on it. Most of them struggle to get to 21kv, Maybe it was RCA trying to avoid X ray fears. The next model (CTC7) and all the rest had a very robust HV supply.

Its hard to tell from the pic, but there were two CTC-5 chassis, the standard and the delux. The standard IIRC has a PCB chroma section while the delux has a point to point. its not real easy to see since again IIRC the standard PCB is shielded so it does not show the PCB material from the top.

Congrats ! Nice tv, and a plus - good picture tube ! !
Good Luck with repairs/restoration !
The cabinet says "Delux" on it, so as long
as it's the original chassis, it has the delux chassis !
Another Plus ! !

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Did the cutoff test good on the AXP?....Mine tests great, but is too gassy to use...The symptom all-or-nothing (neon bulb action) cutoff.

Ahh HATE Yew !-Y. Sam, Philosopher Extraordinaire... Naw, not really... Glad to see ANOTHER veteran has a chance to live again, & display "Glorious Lollipop Color" that delighted its 1st owners nearly 60 (Gulp !) years ago..

Thanks for the comments guys. I believe it is the deluxe chassis, but now know how to confirm once removing the plate over the PCB chroma section.

I believe all three guns on the 21AXP had good cutoff response on Kamakiri's CRT tester. I have not tested myself, but was there when he tested it on Saturday and it looked good. CRT was rebuilt in the 1970s and I believe NEVER used after rebuild.

Cutoff was probably the strongest I've ever seen testing a tube :)

CTC-5 Chassis I.D. Use this as reference in identifying your CTC-5 chassis.

-Steve D.

Very nice, looking forward to the resto thread!

Awesome find! Have fun restoring that gem!!

The red of that AX looks awesome in that second pic, Al,......Oh Duh:stupid:, thats a blanket

That CTC5 is a Deluxe chassis also, right?

Ha!! Yeah, that's the blanket in the back of my truck. Transported the good CRT seat-belted in next to me riding shotgun. Yep, this is the Deluxe chassis.

I am working on the same Model with a different chassis number. My is CTC5 AA. Mine also has a rebuilt 21AXP22A. On the bases of the picture tube it has a number of 6204. Any idea what this means?

Ross

Most likely the 4th week of 1962, or late January 62.

What brand of tube is it? I've seen RCA tubes with the year stamped on the rear center of the base where the index pin is located.

Cool ! A ctc-5 AA is one of the Delux Chassis sets if I'm not mistaken, others will
verify I'm sure ! The number might be a date code.... 4th week of 1964, or the
62nd week of 1904, or 2004, I'm sure lots of people are laughing at that decoding....
Might me a manufacturing plant ID, or something put there to drive collectors nuts
50 years after the set left the factory..... This one definitely gets my vote !

edit: Sorry Eric, I didn't see the page 2 until the post went up ! HA HA !


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The chassis is a Deluxe model. The 21AXP22A is a RCA brand. I finished replacing all of the paper caps and now need to do the electrolytic caps.

My CTC-5 is one of my very favorite sets. Temperamental, yep. As noted, they run a fairly low HV. I think mine is measuring closer to 19kv or so. Definitely a different animal than what came later.

Maybe I'll try a different flyback in mine at some point, a deluxe 5 with better HV would be a very nice set.

I'm going to try to get to my Whitby this coming winter. The chassis has been re-capped, and has been powered using resistors to dummy-out the sweep section, so it'll be interesting to see how it performs complete. After reading the posts in this thread, it came to mind that a room dedicated to display of early color might be painted black. Need to convince the board at the museum to let me do it. :yes:
Kevin
VRCMCT.org