CRT mold [was: HP2648 heartbreak]

[Eric F.]

 > I know of just a few collectors who have one or two, and some
 > of them have the dreaded crt mold.

This may be moot, but I don't believe that this is mold.

CRT mold has been touched upon on this list many times in the past. I was 
even asking about it sometime last year, as one of my ADM-3A's has this 
unfortunate symptom.

I don't believe I ever reported back on what I did, so I'll do it now.

As has been mentioned in the past, this CRT so-called "mold" appears in 
between the front of the CRT glass and the back of the safety glass (at 
least I think the safety "glass" is actually made of glass.)

So I opened the ADM-3A, and removed the CRT from the clamshell enclosure. I 
then removed a long strand of tape which covers the juncture between the 
two surfaces (which is applied around the edge of the CRT).  Then, I (if 
you can imagine this) jammed a flat-head screwdriver in between the two 
surfaces (there is some thick adhesive which binds the two together).  I 
know... I know... not the smartest, safest act in the world.  But the CRT 
was already toast, and I didn't care much about ruining it further. (I've 
heard about methods to gently remove the adhesive, but they all required 
the use of some serious solvents, of which I have no place to appropriately 
utilize them where I live (read: condo).)

Anyway, after I forcefully jammed the adhesive in a few places with a 
screwdriver (with safety glasses on), I noticed the resulting patterns 
looked _exactly_ like the existing so-called mold spots.

So, my conclusion is that these perceived mold spots are just actually just 
places where the adhesive has started to pop loose. For what reason this 
happens, don't know.

I do recall there was discussion in the past on this list that it wasn't, 
in fact, mold, but just the adhesive, as I pointed out. But I wanted to 
share this real life experiment in hopes we can narrow down what really is 
going on with this beast that plagues some CRTs.