I'm thinking of buying this Admiral

[MadMan]

Sorry the pics suck bc cell phone. There's a splotch of tar on the front plate - petrified tape residue from another era. An auction sticker on the side in photo #2 gives away a tidbit of this piece's history. Though the seller says he got it from a friend, and had it as a display piece until he moved to a smaller dump.

I took the chassis out and evicted most of the dust bunnies. Inside, it seems only to be missing a single tube shield thingy. Haven't catalogued which tubes I need yet, I only know that I need lots. It's kinda hard looking underneath the chassis with a 100-pound tube weighing it down, but all looks original under there.

Any tips for removing the crt safely?

I don't think there's any waking it up, btw. Let it cook for an hour, still tests around "1." The scale is kind of ambiguous, but 0 to 2 is "Bad," so...

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by MadMan

Haven't catalogued which tubes I need yet, I only know that I need lots. ...

Tubes are usually not the main source of trouble in antique TV sets. What you should replace are all the wax paper capacitors and the electrolytic caps.