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Scientists from Heriot-Watt University have welded glass and metal together using an ultrafast laser system, in a breakthrough for the manufacturing industry.
Various optical materials such as quartz, borosilicate glass and even sapphire were all successfully welded to metals like aluminium, titanium and stainless steel using the Heriot-Watt laser system, which provides very short, picosecond pulses of infrared light in tracks along the materials to fuse them together.
The new process could transform the manufacturing sector and have direct applications in the aerospace, defence, optical technology and even healthcare fields.
Now that iPhone will be welded shut.
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Welding Breakthrough Could Transform Manufacturing
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Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by drussell on Tuesday March 05 2019, @04:18PM
Well, most CRT "rebuilds" are not anywhere close to as complicated as John's attempt at eliminating the leak-prone glass-metal seals on the extremely rare 15GP22. In fact, most "rebuilds" were simply a replacement of the electron gun. On monochrome tubes, a good, complete rebuild would also include removing the old phosphor then depositing new phosphor,after which the inside of the faceplate would be aluminized, even if the original tube was from before the era of aluminization.
Some additional tidbits for your viewing pleasure:
A video documenting the process that Scotty used at Hawkeye (the last remaining North American tube rebuilder which shuttered in 2010) to rebuild picture tubes, shortly before they closed. This was just after Scotty struck the deal with the museum to essentially donate his equipment to the museum to eventually, hopefully, once again be able to rebuild tubes on a small scale for collectors, since the primary markets like re-doing tubes for places like airports, bowling alleys, radar and military displays, etc. has disappeared, along with profitability. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3G7b-DcOO4 [youtube.com]
Some more interesting tidbits about the 15GP22 at the Early Television Museum:
http://www.earlytelevision.org/15gp22.html [earlytelevision.org] (A bit more background on the 15GP22)
http://www.earlytelevision.org/15gp22_rebuild_report.html [earlytelevision.org] (Attempts at Hawkeye to re-gun 15GP22s)
http://www.earlytelevision.org/crt_rebuild.html [earlytelevision.org] (More information on rebuilding in general)
When RACS in France, which was the last remaining CRT rebuilder in Europe decided, like Hawkeye, to close their doors a few years ago, the museum struck a deal with RACS to procure some of their equipment as well. They also sent one of their members over to France for a week to document their variation of the process and learn more about the procedures they had been using. Here is some footage from that visit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byCeMKzPJgM [youtube.com]
In the Black & White days, picture tube rebuilding was once a very common thing. Companies sold the whole outfit necessary with the glass lathes, ovens, vacuum pump, (as well as supplies, like the electron guns) etc. to small shops, even billing it as a "work from home" career. Many of these were set up in basements and garages all around the country. Occasionally an essentially complete set-up resurfaces at an estate sale or somesuch. Unfortunately, doing a good rebuild was much more difficult than those peddlers of the equipment would lead one to believe, so many poorly rebuilt tubes were around, amongst the truly good ones, which, often times were actually even better than when they originally left the manufacturing line.
One final tidbit from Bob Andersen, a well known radio/TV restorer in Chicago, when he receives his rebuilt tube back from Hawkeye, knowing that they were closing and that the possibility of getting future tubes rebuilt was in doubt. (...and still is... The museum now has a complete one-tube-at-a-time rebuilding line set-up and have successfully rebuilt a couple tubes but lack an operator with the necessary skills and time to manage and run the theoretical operation. Nick Williams, however, the guy who went to France to learn the trade from RACS, has also procured the necessary equipment to do rebuilds and is currently setting it up at his home in Maryland, expecting to be able to take up the mantle when he retires from the Navy, which he expects to do sometime next year.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcmwo74jJpA [youtube.com]
Fascinating stuff!
If you're interested in more of the history of teh CRT, I highly recommend Peter Keller's excellent book, "The Cathode-Ray Tube: Technology, History and Applications".