CRT implosions

[Tony Duell]

> I've stored monitors outside in the baking sun during summer for extended
> periods of time.  I've had the CRT heat up so much that it quite literally
> burned you if you touched the surface.  However, none ever spontaneously
> imploded.  My guess is that you'd have to have enough heat that the glass
> began to melt before it imploded, and even then it wouldn't implode but a
> gapwould open and the tube would re-atmospherize.

It's uneven heating -- geting one part of the glass hot while the rest 
remains cold -- that sets up thermal stresses in the stuff. Splashing 
wanter on a hot filament lamp will often cause it to break, not because 
it would break if cooled evenly to the water temperature (after all, it 
cools to room temperature when it's switched off) but because you cool 
some parts of the glass and not others.

> 
> Still, if I were to do what Jules did, in the very least I'd wear safety
> goggles and some leather gloves.

At least one service manual I have suggests wearing a leather apron to 
proctect 'those other important bits' :-)

-tony