Found a link to this video - http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3wrzo_fabrication-dune-lampe-triode_tech - that shows a man making a triode tube.

I suspect the narration may be in French (I have no audio where I am right now), but it's fascinating to watch the process.

Quite a hobby...

 

The laborious process left me amazed. Outstanding!

 

Wow. Just wow.

Claude Paillard is the man's name.

Wow.

http://paillard.claude.free.fr/

Wow.

 

What a stunning piece of engineering. In these days of mass-machine-manufactured products to see something so intricately assembled is quite fantastic.

Although in the last quarter I did think his beard was going to go up when he had that blow-torch going!

Bravo.

Dave

 

Excellent. Did anyone else notice the absence of a "Getter"..?

 

It may be that his awesome vacuum pumps did a thorough job. That roughing pump looked as if it would turn an elephant inside out.

It really makes you wonder how Lee De Forest managed to cobble up a triode in the '20s - or how long it took to make audion tubes work interchangeably.

I am a bit hazy after all these years, but don't recall seeing the silvery gettter flash on every tube. I've got a few dozen assorted tubes in a pair of Exide battery jars, and see flash on fewer that 1/4 of the tubes.

 

Informative and entertaining. Great stuff.

 

Wow - what can I say! I'm very much into tubes and always wanted to see how the process was done. Now its all so "simple".

 

Wonder if he makes money off it, or if it is just a hobby. It is so labor intensive I can't see how he'd make money, but then he's producing art as much as technology. He was mass producing those, 19th century style. It was very interesting.

There were several processes I wondered about, The split cylinder with the linch pins, was that a curing station for the glass I wonder?

 

Grand! Loved the single tube radio.. never seen anything like it.

 

A staple in scifi is recreating tech from nothing but what is in peoples heads. That gentleman has some very high tech tools indeed, though I suspect the glassblowing would be doable by a 15th century artisan. Was his cathode also the filament? That's how it appeared to me.

 

I'm speechless... almost. Makes me want to trace the history of this grand field of endeavour. Actually that might be a good idea some time. Like others I always wonder what's inside those black box things; IC packages and so forth. It might be a rewarding experience if you had access to tools like that to learn the old stuff and develop insight into things that came before transistors. Really knowing and understanding what's under the hood and how it all works is important to me, although I don't think I'll acquire that sort of knowledge for modern components.

 

Wonder if he makes money off it, or if it is just a hobby. It is so labor intensive I can't see how he'd make money, but then he's producing art as much as technology. He was mass producing those, 19th century style. It was very interesting.

There were several processes I wondered about, The split cylinder with the linch pins, was that a curing station for the glass I wonder?

You can actually buy one of his tubes, I think he gets around $250 for them. I'd like to have one just for a collector's item. Or to build a cool regenerative receiver like he does at the end.

 

It was surprising but i happened to spot many such tubes (triodes,pentodes,etc.) at the 2nd hand market in the suburbs where i live. I must add they are some amazing piece of engineering.......and to say they were developed almost a century ago!