I got the old silicone off and recoated the fly for the CTC-16 on Saturday. It went well, and aside from the rubber tire being charred/bubbled there were no scorch marks or carbon tracks to be found (the old silicon and fly paper were fine).
I decided not to smooth it since a rough surface has more surface area, and thus should cool better.
I gave it about 1.5-2 hours run time with the silicone still soft (which cured it nicely), and it ran like a champ the whole time.
Then I got sidetracked till last night upgrading my laptop to Windows 10 (long story).
I gave it another hour and 40 minutes on. No, arcing, no wax ooze, but the fly does get rather warm...I want to try and find some time to put 3-6 continuous hours on it to see how it holds up. When I can I'll get some heat sink compound for the fly to chassis (may also squirt some between the windings and core). I'll also try to add some vent holes and a fan to it, but I gotta figure out where and which fan (the best side to put a decent sized fan is against the side of the cabinet, and not usable).
I worked on the 20 today. I resoldered the busted coax to the color level control, and resoldered the snapped off chroma transformers.....It came on, a moment later I hear a snap and the vertical fills out.
Then I proceed to adjust what I believe is the chroma osc. transformer and start to get color barber-poling.....Then another snap, raster is lost, and smoke from the area of the chroma osc. transformer. I swap the two leads I guessed the connection points to, and try to reassemble it, but the bottom has melted/warped to the point where I'm not sure that transformer is worth fixing anymore....The vertical relapsed to not filling the screen too. That CTC-20 is a real mess.
I think I'll work on something else for an hour or two to get a break from RCA color work.