|
There is a difference between a pressure band and a mounting band. The banded tubes use steel like a packing band and is crimped with a similiar seal. You can remove it AFTER the tube is let down to air which you HAVE to do when rebuilding it. You would normally use a hacksaw and can reuse the band on a smaller tube. The idea is that if a tube is struck from the front, the sides of the tube will have to expand in order to implode. With the band wrapped around it, the perimeter cannot expand thus making the tube safer.
A mounting band has a clamp that you can screw down and doesn't count here. Some tubes have the mounting ears made in with the pressure band for a specific application.
If you use a hacksaw to remove the band on a live tube, the band flies apart, dangerously and the tube suddenly "expands" enough that the bulb will rupture and implode. It doesn't bother a tube already let down to air because there is no tension on the glass bulb.
The glass bulb or envelope cannot be scratched anywhere because the scratch makes a weak point and you CANNOT put a scratched bulb in the oven as it has an 90% chance of imploding because of that scratch. (On the faceplate esp)
Somehow a few tubes get scratched on the face in the process (both new and rebuilt) that it was a good tube and putting a bonded face on it would hide the scratch with the resin between the two glass surfaces. Many others were called "seconds" if it wasn't a bad scratch as well as tubes that developed "pimples" in the phosphor. RCA made test jigs using a 19" tube (19EYP22) that had "TEST TUBE ONLY" sandblasted on the front upper corner of the tube so that you couldn't sell it as a replacement tube. They were that valuable back then.
__________________
julian
|