CRT implosion experience?

[oldtvman]

When I was service manager at Radio Distributing, an Rca parts distributor. One of the guys dropped a 21 inch round crt in the box and shook the entire building which was about 400 feet long. Luckily it was still in the box. He was trying to move it off of a stack of crt's piled three high.

[holmesuser01]

Didnt see it happen, but was there for the aftermath:

Customer had aquired his own CRT for his set. I think it was from Sears. He installed it himself. Instead of buying the correct tube, with a bonded safety glass, he went with a less-expensive tube without the safety. I still dont know how he figured out how to get a tube minus the glass.

We went to his home, and there was glass shards allover his living room, and the front of his TV was literally blown out.

He told us that when reinstalling the tube, he had a rough time getting the strap on the bell tightened enough, but finally got it, as he could tell by the rust marks on the strap screw threads. I couldn't tell him about differences in CRT sizes at this point.

The new CRT was in the set less than 24 hours before the implosion. Luckily, the customer and HIS KIDS were not watching TV when it happened, or things would have been much worse... I know the kids sat real close to the screen. I do know that the set was turned on, and the family was in the next room eating dinner.

The customer replaced his living room furniture, and all the carpeting, since even after careful cleaning, there was still glass in everything.

After all this was over, we installed a new CRT in his set... I want to say it was a GE, with the right safety glass, and I still have him for a customer today.