[Tom Albrecht]

I'm busy with some other things at the moment, but next weekend I'll try some larger value ceramic caps and report how they work. I'll intentionally leave the linearity adjusted for the tubular caps, just to see how ceramic caps would function in a set without linearity adjustment. Based on the experiments so far, it seems clear that the linearity would be quite poor with .005 ceramic if there were no linearity adjustment. If simply using a larger value of ceramic solves the problem, that's a nice option to have (although probably not cheaper than using tubular caps if you have to order new caps).

The bunching effect is a real effect, and may or may not be related to the vertical deflection coupling caps as I originally reported. In the past, I have had the impression that some sets and certain CRTs are more prone to it than others, ranging from fairly problematic to completely unnoticeable. The Sentinel 400TV I have on the bench now, with the CRT I now have in it (I swapped it out recently) doesn't show this problem until the brightness and contrast are high enough to cause other problems (so I don't consider the bunching to be a problem at all on this set now). Next time I have an electrostatic set on the bench that shows the bunching problem, I'll go after it some more.

A few of you have reported seeing the bunching problem in your posts above. Any insight you can add would be helpful.