I thought that I had seen everything

[tubelab.com]

I still have about 50,000 loose unboxed, unsorted tubes stashed in a warehouse that I have collected over the last 40 or so years. Many of them are broken due to mishandling before I got them. When I find a broken tube of a type that I am unfamiliar with, I often take it apart.This allows me to see how it was made. Over the years I have seen all sorts of unusual things, including some poor workmanship and mistakes.

Every weekend since I returned from up north, I have been sorting tubes in an effort to organize my collection and eliminate some tubes that are not useful to me. I would guess that I have had about 10,000 dirty tubes through my hands in the last 4 weeks.

Today I found something different. It is a GE 6AG5 that came with "spare parts" inside. I removed the lettering so that I could take the picture. At first I thought that the heater had somehow worked its way out of the cathode, but no, it is still in there. In fact this tube STILL WORKS in a tube tester. Some poor assembly line worker dropped an extra heater inside this tube. I am not quite sure how since the heater should have been inside the cathode before the cathode went into the assembly and was fastened to a base.

[Ty_Bower]

Kinda like the mechanic that left his wrench under the hood of my car? Crazy...

[tubelab.com]

Better than the surgeon who left his "tools" behind.

I still (today) work in the electronics plant that I started my engineering career in 36 years ago. Back then there were assembly lines where "board stuffers" put leaded components into PC boards. There were random audits where the auditor would count your components at the beginning of a shift, then again at the end of a shift. The number of components used should equal the number of boards built. Maybe the assembler had too many heaters!

[tubelab.com]

OK, I thought finding a tube with a "spare" heater inside was weird, but today I was sorting tubes again, and there it was, another one! Same tube type, a 6AG5.

[Boris_The_Blade]

They're like shirts that come with extra buttons!

[Richard Ellis]

Did ya here the one Vice-Grips (TM) ad from the ninties? featuring this tool that had been left behind inside the sheetmetal of an early sixties Chevy right off the assembly line. The tool was still in place some thirty-five years later where it had been locked, holding together two pieces of sheetmetal.
________________________________Rick...........

[tubelab.com]

Where do these come from. I got some tubes, OK a lot of tubes. I started with 54 boxes that looked like this. And about 15 more that contained big tubes wrapped in newspaper. They are all loose, unsorted tubes. This one weighs 41 pounds. These tubes average 73 tubes per pound. The larger miniatures, about 60 per pound, and octals between 25 and 40 per pound. Some boxes weigh about 30 pounds, some over 75 pounds. Rough guess, 100,000 tubes.

I have been paying rent to keep these for several years. In todays economy, I can not continue to do this. So I have finally been forced to dig through the boxes and really see what is in them. Last year I went through all of the boxes full of big tubes (easy) and sold off all of the thyratrons and other usless (to me) stuff. I also sold off many of the boxed tubes, and others that I realized that I would never have time to use.

I have spent all of my free time since Christmas sorting the boxes full of small tubes. I have found some useful tubes, but a lot of garbage. The box in the picture contains about 2900 6AK5's, I have two more boxes of them and another box full of 6AL5's Obviously these have to go.

[tubelab.com]

Did ya here the one Vice-Grips (TM) ad from the ninties?

I got an old motorcycle from a friend back in the 70's because the splined shaft that the shift lever goes on had the splines stripped off. I drove it for over a year with a pair of vice grips for a shifter.

I set up 3 racks like this one. I have been sorting tubes into these bins. Yep, more 6AK5's and 6AL5's. I have at least 1000 12AU7"s and about 500 5993's. I plan to do some serious testing to find out if 12AU7's really do suck, or if there is a valid use for them in HiFi audio. I will find out if they can be made to glow. I have now got a lifetime supply of 12AT7's too.

[tubelab.com]

I have been asked "why don't you just toss all of the tubes in the trash. You could just buy what you need with the rent money you will save." At first, I laughed. Now those words make too much sense, the rent keeps going up, but I just can't toss any tubes in the trash......yet.

I have been sorting tubes and finding junk, so I begin to wonder why I don't toss some of them. I can't figure out why the eccentric old collector who was the previous owner of all this junk seemed to have a thing for 6AK5's. Some of the boxes that I have sorted were mostly 6AK5's with a few 6AL5's and 6AS6's mixed in. Just when I get the urge to dump the whole box, I find one or two of these. I guess the sorting will continue. Found some funny looking Bendix pentodes too 6094's I believe.

[dsavitsk]

I have a much smaller, though frankly still sizable, collection of tubes that came from a university basement. Probably a couple of thousand in total. Oddly, there is an enormous number of 6AK5's and 12AU7's in mine, too. Must have been useful to someone for something.

Triode strapped, the 6AK5 is not too useless. It works well as the second gain stage in a phono stage with a 6GK5 in the first spot. It also makes a decent line level cathode follower, or cathodyne perhaps. Probably good for guitar duty, too.

http://www.mif.pg.gda.pl/homepages/f...138/5/5654.pdf