Ct-100

[Tom Albrecht]

Hi miniman82,

I was just about to send off an email to Solidesign, but if you're willing to send me a set, I'll do my best to put them to good use. Great to see how folks here share resources and tips.

Quick question here for anyone who has worked on these or faced a similar situation on a different set -- Is there a preferred way to get the safety glass off the plastic CRT mask? Looks like the original rubber or expanded foam seal liquefied at some point and ran downward a little, and then very helpfully turned to stone with quite good adhesive properties (see picture). I'm hoping not to damage the paint on the front of the mask, which might happen if I simply try to pry it apart. Maybe a little (but not too much) heat?

Tom

[ohohyodafarted]

Originally Posted by Tom Albrecht

Hi miniman82,

I was just about to send off an email to Solidesign, but if you're willing to send me a set, I'll do my best to put them to good use. Great to see how folks here share resources and tips.

Quick question here for anyone who has worked on these or faced a similar situation on a different set -- Is there a preferred way to get the safety glass off the plastic CRT mask? Looks like the original rubber or expanded foam seal liquefied at some point and ran downward a little, and then very helpfully turned to stone with quite good adhesive properties (see picture). I'm hoping not to damage the paint on the front of the mask, which might happen if I simply try to pry it apart. Maybe a little (but not too much) heat?

Tom

I have had to remove several safety glass plates from RCA plastic crt frames which were stuck together from the foam rubber gasget that was used. I found that if you saturate the rubber with WD40 or mineral spirits the rubber will start to get gooey and then it will be much easier to seperate the glass from the crt frame. AFter seperating the 2 pieces, I use mineral spirits and fine steel wool to clean the rubber off the inside face of the glass. The plastic frame is a bit more difficult to clean. I use a plastic "Bondo" spatula as a scraper to remove the bulk of the gooey rubber that was softenend by the mineral spirits. Any type of soft plastic will probably work so as not to damage the crt frame. Then when you have the bulk of the rubber removed from the crt frame, use a rag saturated with mineral spirits and rub the remaining rubber residue from the crt frame. I even had good results doing this on a CT100 crt frame and did not do any damage to the painted areas.

I did use the heat method on a CTC4 safety glass once, but the solvent method above works well if you are patient and there is less risk of breaking the glass.

RE: the decals issue. It is my understanding that if you are doing a complete refinish and you place the decals on wet varnish, and then apply several more coats to the cabinet, that the decals will be less visable. I have yet to try this method so I cant vouch for it. But Nick is correct, if you apply the decals on the surface, the carrier of the decal will be VERY visable.

[Kevin Kuehn]

There are various setting solutions that model builders use to brush over the decal after it's been first set. The solution softens the film, allowing the decal film to pull down tight against any surface irregularities when it dries, which eliminates voids under the film that show up as white spots when the film dries. Hiding the film edges becomes a process of applying many coats of clear finish over the area - enough so that the edges can be feather sanded in. There are various
thicknesses of decal films available too. However the thinner ones will be much more fragile to apply. I use to use this stuff back when I was into model railroading when I was younger. It was really amazing how many irregularities you cold conform a decal over.

I think during manufacturing that they used the silk screening process. There's no way they could have taken the time to apply individual decals, unless it was for a prototype.