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How To Make Your Very Own Vacuum Tubes

buglegirl

buglegirl

I Want To Be The Girl With The Most Cake
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Hiya,

Found this

Excerpt:

I started calling companies listed under “Electron Tube Manufacturers” until I got a voice on the other end. Most of the numbers would ring to the familiar “this number is no longer in service” message, but in one lucky case I found I was talking to a Mrs. Roni Elsbury, nee Ulmer of M.U. Inc. Her company is one of the only remaining firms still engaged in the production of traditional style vacuum tubes in the U.S.
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http://hackaday.com/2014/11/21/artisanal-vacuum-tubes-hackaday-shows-you-how/

Referenced company website.

http://www.mu-inc.com/

Frannie
 
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4-2-7 said:
Frannie the nerd, didn't you or someone post this vid link before, it's really cool.
hand making vacuum tubes Part 1
https://youtu.be/gl-QMuUQhVM

Not only are they making the tubes but had to make all the tools as well
Click to expand...

Not me ... I was just dinking around and stumbled upon that site.

So if anyone asks if tubes are still being made in the USA ... for at least now you can answer with a yes.

Frannie
 
buglegirl said:
Not me ... I was just dinking around and stumbled upon that site.

So if anyone asks if tubes are still being made in the USA ... for at least now you can answer with a yes.

Frannie
Click to expand...

Hand made to boot. And people wonder why tubes can be costly.:yes:
 
Take a look at the Mullard factory movies at youtube to get an idea what's really involved to mass produce and QC the firebottles.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk
 
"Artisanal Tubes". I can see people paying big bucks for these if they're artisanal enough and sound good. Beyond the potentially superior quality of hand made/high quality vs. mass produced, there's the whole 'unique' aspect embodied in 'artisan': Colored glass, recycled plastic bases, free trade filaments?

I've always thought about winding caps. It doesn't seem difficult and would have the same possibilities. Handmade Papyrus in Jojoba oil caps? Hmm...
 
buglegirl said:
Hiya,

Found this

Excerpt:



http://hackaday.com/2014/11/21/artisanal-vacuum-tubes-hackaday-shows-you-how/

Referenced company website.

http://www.mu-inc.com/

Frannie
Click to expand...

I like the phraseology "traditional style vacuum tubes" :-)

... although, in fariness, I do know what they mean, presumably -- since Korg, e.g., has them newfangled ones:

http://www.korg.com/ph/news/2015/012212/

not to mention of course* the emerging "nano vacuum tube":
http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2012/05/return-vacuum-tube


_________
* I told you not to mention that! ;-)
 
buglegirl said:
Not me ... I was just dinking around and stumbled upon that site.

So if anyone asks if tubes are still being made in the USA ... for at least now you can answer with a yes.

Frannie
Click to expand...

Actually that potentially makes 2 US manufacturers. Westrex had been producing the 300B for a while, and bought the Western Electric trademarks, so they are now, or were making Western Electric Tubes in the US. The website has not been updated for a long time. I sent an email to them to see what was up but only time will tell.

It did not cost that much back in the day to set up shop rebuilding CRT's- quite a few people did that out of their garage. My dad worked with a fellow who did it on the side. If you got your hands on one of those setups, you could adpapt it to potentially making new tubes if you could find suppliers for some of the materials.
 
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I remember Groove Tubes buying the old GE machines and leftover cages, spacers, bottles et al. They were making the GE6L6GC in California for a while. I had some in a guitar amp....very nice. However, as I recall, some stages of the manufacturing process could not be done in the U.S because of enviromental concerns. I believe it was that the cathode coating process used a heavy metal that had been banned by the EPA. How do they get around this? :scratch2: Anyone else remember this?
 
Hiya,

tubeampking said:
I remember Groove Tubes buying the old GE machines and leftover cages, spacers, bottles et al. They were making the GE6L6GC in California for a while. I had some in a guitar amp....very nice. However, as I recall, some stages of the manufacturing process could not be done in the U.S because of enviromental concerns. I believe it was that the cathode coating process used a heavy metal that had been banned by the EPA. How do they get around this? :scratch2: Anyone else remember this?
Click to expand...

Good question ... not really up on how to get approval or where its allowed.

I do know that for years that equipment was up for sale for peanuts at that site.

As far as making a CRT ... you could start this way.

http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Electron-Accelerator-A-Cathode-Ray-Tube-in-a-/

Frannie
 
Hiya,

Looks like you could do this in a Garage.

http://www.earlytelevision.org/crt_project.html

Frannie

PS: I am NOT demeaning or trivializing what these guys are doing. What they are doing is quite awesome actually and honestly I can hardly test a triode properly so who the heck am I to "Arm Chair" this.
 
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I'd be very curious to know what they were using that was 'banned'. There is almost nothing that you can't use, it's just that uses are limited. For example lead paint is still made and used in the US, you just can't buy it at the hardware store or use it on a residence. They still paint bridges with it.

More likely whatever it was required elaborate safety measures of some kind that made it not very feasible or affordable here.

Just thinking out loud, it's kinda wandering off topic but it's my bag. :D
 
toxcrusadr said:
I'd be very curious to know what they were using that was 'banned'. There is almost nothing that you can't use, it's just that uses are limited. For example lead paint is still made and used in the US, you just can't buy it at the hardware store or use it on a residence. They still paint bridges with it.

More likely whatever it was required elaborate safety measures of some kind that made it not very feasible or affordable here.

Just thinking out loud, it's kinda wandering off topic but it's my bag. :D
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Lead is in the paint in cars still, and is used by industry including the grain handling equipment your food is processed with. (Brakes are still asbestos to if not specifically labelled "metalix"- they got around it by calling it "mineral".

I think the isuse is not so much it being banned as much as it is so heavilly regulated due to 9-11 specifically Thorium. It would be interesting to know how many of those people who were after platinum and just breaking up any tubes they could get their hands on have developed lung cancer or some blood cancer as a result of inhaling the dust from the coatings?
 
I thought about thoriated tungsten filaments, but there were only a small fraction of tubes that used those. Most of the audio tubes are indirectly heated cathodes, I couldn't tell you what alloy they use for that but I don't think it's thoriated.
 
Wiki article on hot cathodes, both direct and indirect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_cathode

Sounds like a ton of different materials were/are used. Unfortunately there isn't much info on exactly what is used most commonly in vacuum tubes. It does say this:

The most common type of indirectly heated cathode is the oxide-coated cathode, in which the nickel cathode surface has a coating of alkaline earth metal oxide to increase emission. The earliest material used was barium oxide; it forms a monatomic layer of barium with an extremely low work function. More modern formulations utilize a mixture of barium oxide, strontium oxide and calcium oxide. Another standard formulation is barium oxide, calcium oxide, and aluminium oxide in a 5:3:2 ratio. Thorium oxide is used as well. Oxide-coated cathodes operate at about 800-1000 °C, orange-hot. They are used in most small glass vacuum tubes, but are rarely used in high-power tubes because the coating is degraded by positive ions that bombard the cathode, accelerated by the high voltage on the tube.[5]
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Handling thorium probably would require an NRC permit, similar to what you'd have to do if you were making sensor elements for smoke detectors with americium-241. Frought with procedures, safeguards, administrative expenses and bureaucracy. I think we can agree on that. :D
 
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