[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by Don Rotolo

Al's comment on the High Voltage needs to be taken seriously, and I perhaps underestimated it in my post above.

While I do not disagree with Al's warning on tube vacuum, I have some comments:

It's not that the tube is under such a high vacuum, but that there is such a huge volume of it. A regular light bulb has the same grade of vacuum, but in just a tiny volume.

On the other hand, in a former job, we used to break picture tubes all the time for testing, and we never had a problem like that. Yes, raw phosphor material blasted into the air (Warning: Poison!) , glass shards at surprisingly high velocities, loud noise... but no internals.

Don

Dan,
There is a reason the front of the tube is tempered and/or safety glass. Having worked in a TV factory it is surprising to see an electron gun sucked through the tube when the neck breaks.