[Username1]

When I was in college I use to get trade in tv's from the rca dealer in town. I fixed them and sold them to students for about $40. He would let me have sets he didn't want for $10. each. The XL-100's usually had bad or low emission tubes. I use to get the 17" or so Mural RCA's with the toggle power switch on it, they were good sets tubes aged gracefully. Well the XL-100's that had bad emissions I use to put a variable power supply across the filiment turn up all the guns and brightness to the max make the tube as bright as possible and then crank up the filiment. After about one or two hours I would whack the neck of the tube with a screw driver until I herd a sharp crack and a nice spark jump inside the tube a few times. The tube would brighten up nicely and when I returned all the settings to normal, and rewire the filiment I ended up with a nice working tube. I did dozens of these tubes like that and naturally never really hit them that hard, never had one break. If I had only one gun giving me trouble I would just turn that gun's drive up and still whack the thing good. This was my last ditch effort at the time, since my investment was not large I really didn't have much to lose. If anyone wants me to give it a try on your roundies after Scotty retires just send me a note........ : )