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More Base Surgery

Some of you might remember my recent posts about re-keying an octal base. Now I'm thinking about a more difficult modification, and I'm wondering if anyone here has ever attempted it or heard of anyone who has.

I have a small quantity of tubes with 7-pin bases the same size as used on a 1625 transmitting tube. The glass envelope is smaller than the 1625 though, more like the 1626. I think a standard octal base could be glued up if the existing bases and pins could be removed. This is actually the same as if I was simply replacing a damaged octal base with a new one. In this case though, it would create a custom tube that was never manufactured as an octal.

My question is whether it's even possible to remove tube bases without damaging the tubes. Because of the previous work, I already have a jig that can hold the tube upside-down under my mill head. I could mill down into the edge of the underside of the base in a circle, so that the flat bottom (holding the pins) would separate from the side cylinder. That would hopefully leave the bottom held in place only with the wires soldered into the pins, and the cylinder could be removed as a separate operation.

Does this sound feasible, or is it likely just to result in a bunch of broken tubes? Has anyone here ever replaced an entire octal base?






Edits: 12/09/14

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Topic - More Base Surgery - Triode_Kingdom 21:41:14 12/09/14 (10)

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