Grundig CUC 42 KT "Super Color C 6110 GB"

That's a good start! I'm sure I found a smashed up one of these in my younger days, and I had the tuner from it! Don't know if I've still got it, or if I pulled it to bits to see what was In it...

Regards,
Lloyd

Hi Jamie,

Do you have access to a dehumidifier? - It wouldn't be a bad idea to give that set a good few hours of exposure, and get it well dried out.

I once had a Teletext version of this, or very nearly identical, set.. Mine should have had an IR remote control, but I never got one, however, when I sold it (via a local second hand 'we sell on your behalf' kind of shop, the guy who bought it, found a remote control for it - in the skip he was using during his building works - Jammy bleeder! Someone else had been surreptitiously dumping their crap in his skip - how lucky can you get?

Marion

Hi Marion, No I don't however I will probably get the hair dryer on it for 20 minutes or so. Plus I think being in my workshop over the garage is better as it tends to stay reasonably warm and dry in there

This set reminds me of my Grundig portable.

Well today I made an interesting discovery, I didn't clean the set beforehand but after I did I've found 26 chips on the CRT from stones I would assume? All of varying depths none particuarly deep though however it does concern me a little as it's now weakened. Does it pose a risk of implosion/explosion??

However, I hooked up a signal and Judge Rinder looks OK if a little orange! Blue and red are clearly fine, didn't check for green just yet.. Possibly not working though judging my the picture as everythings on full whack.

Hi Jamie,

That's a lot of chips! However, from the pictures, I have seen worse without losing structural integrity.. Remember, that CRT will have a bonded steel band around the face, plus, if I may betray an act of wanton recklessness on my behalf (many, many, years ago) I was once given to a bout rage which I took out an innocent Panasonic TV - CRT was as flat as a pancake.. I laid holy Hell into the screen with a rather large hammer, and despite giving it "a mighty gurt smite" several in fact, that screen took a lot of my anger, and a storm mighty blows to fracture the glass - no big bang, no big smash, but several cracks appeared and the air rushed in.. Even after all that, the screen, looking like a box of 'Dairylea' cheese wedges, stayed securely in place within the steel band.

Implosion protection on modern sets is very good! That Panabanger was a 26" screen.

However, I would most strongly discourage anyone from thinking of smacking a CRT with a big hammer - DON'T DO IT!!!! I was in a very angry fit of rage at that time, and got away with it.

The point being, if your set is not subjected to any abnormal stresses it should remain good indefinitely.. At the very worst, the glass might fracture, but is unlikely to send razor sharp shards flying about the room.. In any case if there are any doubts, the set can be covered in a heavy blanket when it's not in use, or stood behind a perspex screen whilst in use.

Back in the early 70's (probably around 1971) when I was at my first job working for a small family-run TV business, we had a large showroom full of Grundigs and Telefunkens. One night there was a smash-and-grab...first I knew of it was when I arrived at work next morning and the glaziers were busy boarding up the broken bits to make safe prior to fitting a new window. Anyway just inside the door was a Grundig TV similar to yours looking very sorry for itself. The screen was scratched and chipped (a chunk out of one corner), one side of the cabinet was hanging off and the mains lead was snapped off about half way with a frayed end. Once all the glass from the window was cleared up and an assessment of the missing items was made, we looked at the poor Grundig. Apart from the external damage nothing else seemed to be wrong. Out of interest, we made a connection to the mains lead and switched on.....it worked....perfectly! It even had sound considering the broken side carried the speaker which was now laying next to the set. When Grundig (they were in Sydenham at the time) came down to inspect the set, they took photo's of it working and used it as an advertising promotion to show how well-built they were.

A day or so after the robbery, I was walking down to the bakers on the corner when I spied a cable with a plug on that had just been kicked into a doorway....it was the other end of the lead from the Grundig. It was assumed that in the hurry to get away, the robbers had driven off at speed and the Grundig fell out of the van and was dragged along the road for a short distance until the lead gave up. The Grundig had been recovered from the pavement a few doors down.

After all that, I don't think a few digs on the screen are anything to worry about!

Great story Sideband!

It looks to me like someone has been chucking stones at Jamie's Grundig before thankfully giving up. If the tube is flat- which may be why the set was discarded- I'm sure a better one could be sourced with a bit of patience. I think I'd have given the set a really thorough clean-up and vacuum out before leaving it somewhere warm and dry for a week or so before trying it, but then I am Captain Cautious.

Incidentally it is a good idea to start transistor sets off on a lamp limiter? Or is it variacs that can do more harm than good on certain power supplies?

Steve

Incidentally it is a good idea to start transistor sets off on a lamp limiter? Or is it variacs that can do more harm than good on certain power supplies?

Steve

Never had an issue doing this in years... switched mode's seem to give a trip-trip-trip as they struggle to start up on a variac, and then once they get enough mains, they seem to run OK.

I once drove off leaving the van doors open, and my loan set, a 26" TX10, dropped out of the back and skated along the tarmac, screen down. The CRT face was gouged and scraped, but the damn thing ran fine! Quite why I had a 26" set as a loan-er ... I was stronger in those days!

is it variacs that can do more harm than good on certain power supplies?

Steve

Funny you should mention this as we had this debate recently here post #34

If anybody has a stock of old 'Mullard Outlooks', it might be worth looking for the issue that came out when the first Rimguard tubes were released which showed two pictures of tubes that had been subjected to serious grief.

One had been mounted in a frame and hit with a demolition ball - a teensy weensy bit bigger than Marion's hammer, methinks!

The other had been mounted face up and something - it might have been phosphorous but I can't be sure - ignited on the face plate and then quenched.

One tube had a crack from the top down which curled around like a 'J' in the centre and the other had a large circular patch of fine fragments in the centre, but both remained intact. So I don't think Jamie should have any worries!

You used to be able to get grinding pastes to polish out scratches and gouges on CRTs. Certainly as a schoolboy my mate Nelly and I decided to dispatch his family's old telly (some RBM thing I recall, had a stripy red/black volume knob) so we carried it between us down the abandoned bit of the brickyards where of course, there was a plentiful supply of bricks!

Well, try as we might, no amount of bricks lobbed at the front had any effect. Round the back though was a different matter...

I saw one rimband type delta tube that had really gone with a bang. It was a regun fitted to a Gec solid state, the owners dog had knocked the set over and the screen had caught the edge of the stone fireplace. The owner said that the set had gone off with a hell of a bang and showered glass everywhere.
There wasn't any glass remaining on the rimband and the set was full of broken glass. I assume that the regunning process had effected the glue that bonded the rimband.
like Catho my mates and me smashed a few old sets that seemed to be abandoned on almost at every bit of wasteland there was in the 70's. Anything we thought was worth saving was rescued on the go cart But a lot of early 50's consoles and big old barrel Murphy s were considered too old and big even back then so they were robbed of valves and speakers and then the fun began!
It often took a few goes with bricks bouncing off and breaking up, sometimes the safety glass would go leaving the tube intact.. Another brick sorted that! How someone wasn't hurt I have no idea!
We were delighted when we found a Pye continental in a skip, two speakers! one each! That set was in very good condition, I bet it worked!
There is a video on u tube of a chap who cut the rimband on a tube and then put a blowlamp on the screen... The worst part is that they all sat in front of it watching... eye protection? Yes, they wore sunglasses.
Now where's that A774..?
Rich.

We were delighted when we found a Pye continental in a skip, two speakers! one each! That set was in very good condition, I bet it worked!

I'm glad it wasn't mine!

You used to be able to get grinding pastes to polish out scratches and gouges on CRTs.

"Jeweller's Rouge".... A very fine compound paste used to polish precious and semi-precious stones.. Works extremely well on glass, though how much rubbing is required will depend upon the degree and depth of the abrasions.

Also worth a mention.. Rubbing out the pits, even if yo cannot eradicate them, will help the glass to better deal with any stresses to which it is subjected - rather like polishing aircraft parts to improve reliability and durability.

Marion

What about the stuff they use on car windscreens to repair stone chips?

Regards,
Lloyd.

What about the stuff they use on car windscreens to repair stone chips?

Regards,
Lloyd.

The only problem I can see with that is it's dependency on being able to 'key' into the chip damage in a car windscreen.. It is very dependant upon the glass being laminated, and that's not how a CRT is built.. That's not to say it couldn't be used to fill the indentations in the glass, but it would add little to the structural integrity of the CRT face - it's basically a two part resin with very close optical characteristics to glass, even then, a repaired windscreen still has a visibly mark, albeit much less visible then before the repair.

My brother used to offer that service as part of his garage business, and whilst he said is was "pretty good" he also said it was "very hit and miss" - some repairs were better than others, but the deeper the chip, the better the fix because it needed to get down to the sandwich layer so that it could 'key' behind the outer glass layer - a bit like a 'plug door' in an aeroplane, wider inside than out so it couldn't fall out of the hole!

Marion

Some of those chips seem a bit deep for polishing.... I would see why there is no green before I went too much further.. have you got three heaters alight? ISTR some of these mini neck tubes had a habit of "Dropping a heater".
Sometimes a tap on the neck would get it going again for a while.
Rich.

Some of those chips seem a bit deep for polishing.... I would see why there is no green before I went too much further.. have you got three heaters alight? ISTR some of these mini neck tubes had a habit of "Dropping a heater".
Sometimes a tap on the neck would get it going again for a while.
Rich.

I used to carry a PJ996 fitted with two croc clips when visiting ex-rental wholesalers back in the day, to check just that.