> How exactly would you proceed making - say - 13 pin tube bases? You need a > lot of temperature for that and precisely formed tools. So far this is > nothing I can see myself doing in the near future. I know a person who makes > his own (borosilicate glass) sockets, I might be able to adopt the principle > some day.
The tool part isn't too tough, just carve it out of graphite with pin recesses. CNC machining would be the way I'd go, but back in the day it was done by reading scales on handwheels, and obviously it could still be done that way. Once you have your graphite mold/pin holder, get some nice 3-part pins and lead glass tubing of an appropriate diameter. Lead glass is the way to go here - it liquifies enough to gravity flow into molds like this. Slice off rings that have sufficient glass to make your bases, drop pins into your mold, put the glass ring around them, and melt the whole shebang. For extra niceness, you can have an upper mold half that forms little mounds of glass over the pins themselves and flattens the rest of the base into a disc. Let it cool, and violà! The first one will be a real bear, as you have to make the molds determine the amount of glass, temperature to use, etc. But once you have the molds made and the procedure down, you can knock out additional bases fairly easily. - John -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/neonixie-l?hl=en-GB.
