well ive got alot of broken TV's and rather then getting rid of them with the classic 20 grams 50/50 APAN i was thinking of turning one of the small 12 inch ones into an erlenmeyer flask (im in a time of mourning over the death of my 1 liter beaker ) to use for mixing/acquiring gasses/whatever i can think of or am interested in later.

I know this could prove difficult/impossible however due to the vacuum inside of it, and the chance/certainty of it blowing up and sticking a piece of 1" thick glass though me is not a risk i want to take. However id want to know if theres any method you guys could recommend of either dealing with the vacuum or making a big hole in the top of the tube without breaking it all.

-thanks for any help-

^bump^ no one out there ?

Hio Glavin ...sorry to hear about your beaker .. guess you have both been through a lot good times and bad ..i know when i was a little younger we used to make bongs out of JD bottles sometimes we would use an engraver and other times a drill with a small grinding attachment it took fuckin ages..(but we had the bottles filled with sand to cut down on vibration). You migth be able to pop a whole in it that way .. then if you can get a glass cutter in there you may be able to get it off..but for all your trouble it is prolly easier to go to a chem supplier and buy a flask and a beaker .. or even a homebrew/wine making shop may have one .. especially if there is the chance that you may hurt yourself ..

would nichrome wire tied around where i wanted it cut off work? (running electricity through the wire and getting it red hot and letting it go for awhile) or would i have to still go over with a hammer and whack the top of it off?

What exactly happens when you pop something off in a vacuum, would the glass be thick enough to withstand the pressures of all that gas entering?

Rather than "whacking" it, prehaps you might consider.

Heating the end where the electon gun connects with an acetylene or MAPP Gas torch. Just enough so that it sucks a hole and equalizes.

Just a thought, whacking, or grinding a tube under vacuum isn't too bright...

To be totally honest dude ..i really couldn't tell you. If you have got the wire give it a go you will have to get it hellishly hot though, but its gonna heat the area around it and it will sag and carry on cause of the vacuum. At least you wont have to be near it for too long ..and if it goes bad then no one gets hurt.In my experience when you start to mess with glass, the glass dont like it, and even if you achieve what you are going to do and subject it to any sort of abuse it prolly wont last long anyway. Maybe talk to a tv repair man he would know more about it than anyone i guess..tell the fucker you are an artist and want to use it in a sculpture or something wierd like that.. He doesn't have to know who you are ..But really dude.. you can get a beaker from a chem store for less than $10.. Have some fun and beat the bejesus out of the telly with a sledge or better still set the fucker of fire ..

mnm gives the only safe way to Remove the vacuum safely, and even then it ain't that safe.

A TV tube would make a poor ehrlenmeyer, just get a real one they are cheap.

I've 'equilised' quite a few CRT's before, the teknique is to remove the neck circiut board and expose the pins to the electron guns, the pins will be insulated with a plastic socket that has a large nib in the center of it, under the plastic nip is a glass one, you can to one of two things now, either carefully pry the plastick cap off (it is often silliconed on) and snap the glass nip off to release the vacume as you would a light globe, or ignore the cap and, with a pair of pliers, pull and twist one of the pins untill the glass around it cracks and releases the vacume.

A word of warning, Cathode Ray Tube's (CRT's) can contain mercury vapout as well as different kinds of phosphorus, also a lead coating on the inside glass and outside too.

Black & white tubes have a mirror back glass and one type of phosphorus on the front glass, also a mixture of argon and somtimes mercury vapour inside, it would be wise to wash it out with H2SO4 to remove most contaminants, but it is never possible to remove all.

Colour tubes are much more complicated and thus are useless for anything other than imploding, they contain a steel apeture grill used to allign the electrons on the screen. and it is impossible to remove it without destroying the tube. The glass is lined with things like cadnium, red phosphourus, luminous phosphorus (red, green and blue) and may contain mercury vapour.

The chemicals vary form company to company, some use a black substance on the back glass, some use red phos, others use mercury vapour and others use cadnium lining.

Toshiba black stripe tubes appear to contain red phos, also some monitors, but I've never used it because ot the mercury and cadnium.

hey m60e3,,,,,,arent those numbers and letters a weapon and a pay level????

Busting TV tubes isn't such a hot idea. When I was young, I shot one with a sling shot and it shot glass shards all over the place. Not cool

Peace Out,

Evil_Tree

its not that dangerous, if you know what you're doing. i remember in 7th grade, my science teacher just took a tv tube, put a blanket over it, and hit it with a hammer. in retrospect, it probably wasn't the best idea, but you can see that it isnt really too dangerous if you do it right.

quote:Originally posted by kirby:

hey m60e3,,,,,,arent those numbers and letters a weapon and a pay level????

Just a weapon, the M60E3 is a light weight version of the M60, it has a vertical forearm grip instead of the perforated horizontal heat sheild, also a lighter barrel and receiver.

Busting up TV tubes is a favourite past time of mine, but always use a good respirator as the phosphourus will become airborne in a cloud of gasses.

It would pay to swab all of the phosphorus off the B&W tube's front glass before washing with an acid, or you may get phosphoric acid. But the acid will dissolv most of the metal lining that is etched on to the glass.

I have done it myself, but without the acid as I was just finding out how they work. I ended up filling it up with water and hurling it at a brick wall. It was an apple monochrome (green) monitor tube.