Re: x-ray with small Tesla coil as driver

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Jack Vandam" <snotoir7674g-at-mindspring-dot-com> 

I faced this same situation six years ago when I also had a punctured large
x-ray tube.  I eventually sold it at an excellent price to a radiologist,
but the options I came up with were:
a) Check with local glassblowers, esp. those who make neon signs.  Sometimes
they will have a vacuum pump that will evacuate down to the level needed;
b) After a lot of searching, I finally did find someone on the web (don't
know who now, but I found them by careful searching) who offered to do the
evacuation and sealing at a reasonable price, although there was slight
concern about the tube's age and fragile nature.  I think it was a
glassblower who did vacuum work;
c)  The vol. 4, no. 2 issue of "The Bell Jar" featured an article on a
sorption pumped x-ray tube, with vacuum created without a vacuum pump.  Your
tube could probably be evacuated this way, but you'd still be left with the
sealing issue.

Hope this helps....
Jack


 > I have a very old large "soft" X-Ray tube here.  Before I accidently
 > punctured a seal and let all of the vacuum out it gave copius X rays
 > when I connected it to a small TC.  The bulb fluoresed a light yell
 > (almost straw color) and not the usual green.
 >
 > Does anyone here know a good glass blower who might undertake to try to
 > repair the seal and repump the thing?  It's VERY old glass and probably
 > extremely fragile now.  I seem to remember asking this question before
 > and getting some suggestions but never followed up.
 >
 > Ed
 >
 >