Anyone familiar with this Indianapolis company? Were they likely a rebuilder?

There used to be tons of local rebuilders back in the day, they were probably one of them.
I have some tubes branded with various rebuilders names.

VERY familiar with this Company, it was my dad's. He was a self employed rebuilder for many years in Indianapolis.

LOVE that Pic by the way !

Hello SonofSilverGlo, and welcome to the forum. I'm sure we'd love to hear more about your Dad's picture tube rebuilding operation. Do you have any old photo's or stories you could share with us?

Thanks to your dad's work some nice old TV's have been given a new life.

I would guess dad rebuilt thousands of tubes from the late 50's in B/W to the late 80's in living color! The first shop was in Indianapolis on Virginia Ave., he started it up with help from my grandpa who was the first “owner”, but dad did all the work. I don’t remember that shop because I wasn’t born yet, in fact the Feb 1966 tube in the thread by Wilcox Gay Television is older than me. I do remember the shop on Illinois St. very well. I would sweep the floor and build boxes on Saturdays. My parents are both in retirement and I am sure dad will be tickled to find out people are STILL using his picture tubes to bring sets back to life! One of you may have even bought his old vacuum tube checkers off e-bay … lol. I will post a couple of pictures posted by my sister and brother on face book for all here to enjoy.
Silver Glo Tube Co.
“The Best in Television”

I bought a Silver Glo 17BP4 last year for my DuMont RA-113. Wonderful tube. It's mentioned at the end of this article:

http://www.antiqueradio.org/DuMontRA-113Television.htm

Looks like I should add a note to that article, pointing to this discussion with the historical info and newspaper clips.

Regards,

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

Yes that is great that your dad can see someone restoring a TV with a tube he rebuilt 40-50 years ago, how many other businesses can something like that happen in? Is the page 11 continuation of that article posted anywhere?

I wonder how many tubes a place like this would rebuild in a given week? Are those tubes hanging on the racks ones that are awaiting rebuilding, or stock of ones already rebuilt? That 'finished product' tube sure looks like a biggie.

Neat story and pics, thanks for posting!

So cool to hear from you and learn some history about these tubes!

I believe you saw the thread where I used one in my Wilcox-Gay TV, I don't know if you saw the video I made of it working though. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxQiuY4FInw

The tube makes a very nice picture, overall I was very impressed with the quality of the work, I couldn't tell if these were new or rebuilt tubes!

I see several metal/glass CRTs in the lot. Could you do us a BIG favor for us & post his wisdom on rebuilding these tubes? The failure rate was higher on them in the oven, due to implosion. Has he ever tried aluminizing a metal/glass CRT?

Thank you for all the nice comments and the video link, that was cool. I remembered I have an old box of Silver Glo warranty cards in my basement. I was saving the cards for a stamp collection, which is colleting dust more than anything ... I took a look and thought the box and cards may be interesting to you all as well.

Cards from early 1960's

note dates and serial numbers

51Zenith
Are you rebuilding tubes now ? I would think getting necks/guns for old tubes would be the hardest part .

The last CRT rebuilder in the US closed up about two years ago. There is one company remaining in France, who can rebuild certain tubes at a cost of several hundred dollars per tube (plus shipping). They have been talking about closing, too.

The Early Television Foundation museum in Ohio has a project underway to start rebuilding tubes in the future, using the equipment donated by the last US rebuilder. Here is a progress report:

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

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

It is my understanding that ETF project is stalled waiting for the right experienced person to head it up.