[John Folsom]

First, thanks to all the kind words from the VK community. It has been a long road to this first successful rebuild. But it has been a lot of fun getting there.

Scotty is not likely to retire in the near future (months/year), but several years out is anybody's guess. And Scotty may not the the short pole in the tent. The era of he CRT is coning to an end, and our stem supplier or the vendor who replaces the cathodes and filaments in the gun and remounts it on the stem could go away at any time. And Bob's EDM process is vital to having guns rebuilt as well.

So Bob and I are going to attempt a couple of more under vacuum rebuilds, and Bob is going to try a leaker tube using his sealing protocol. We will attempt to do this in as timely a manner as possible.

Depending on the results, we will then consider the path forward. More to come......