COLOR CRT MANUFACTURING in the Mullard Plant

[julianburke]

As you know the color CRT is the heart of a color set. It has many mysteries of how it was made and myself once being involved of their manufacture, would like to amplify this subject. Every manufacturer had their own "trade secrets" of how they made their brand of tubes and I have given talks of CRT manufacture but this is the best film I have seen yet. I once visited a plant to learn techniques for a rebuilding plant I worked at in high school but no pictures were allowed.

If anyone wants to see how color CRT's are made, here is a great piece of British footage of instructional nature. It seems that the Brits made many television instructional films of a highly technical nature for home use! This one was made in the Mullard plant which would be a rare thing for them to do. It also has rare footage of how the delicate shadow mask was "developed" as well as the faceplate which unlocks this mystery! This information was highly proprietary hence this extremely rare footage. ENJOY!

This YouTube is in two parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiKp4...eature=related


They don't show the tubes being placed in their ovens for evacuating as this is the last step in manufacturing. They are evacuated in a 400 degree gas fired oven to expand the atmosphere inside the CRT to help draw a harder vacuum with fewer impurities. Yes, occasionally one will implode in the oven due to a flaw in the glass somewhere and at that moment someone (usually me at my plant) will scurry over to it to shut down the vacuum pump on that tube to prevent further contamination from getting into it, and oil in both mechanical and diffusion pumps would have to be changed. (not a fun job!)