As the comments indicate, this video really is amazing. I don't have the patience for this sort of thing, but I'm always in awe at craftsmen like this. And making vacuum tubes is becoming a lost art. I know that starting in the nineties, some of the more obscure types were available only from Russia. Fortunately, Sylvania and GE continued to make the most common ones.

I have a 65 Gibson Titan III guitar amp that at full volume with your hand on the strings, barely makes a hiss. We're talking 4 6L6s. It is the cleanest amp I've played through. In the 70's and 80's tubes were hard to come by but now I can get them at most any music shop.

Fear not, Rand, it's like Bill says-- tubes are more available now than a decade ago. The most common types of "power" tubes are still being made, and some of the "receiving" types are being made again as the massive pile of new old-stock tubes gets whittled down.

Just remember-- real radios glow in the dark.

I can't help wondering what happens when the Greens and Global Warmers find out about this. Do 6L6s come in a compact fluorescent version?

Regards,
Ric

That's very impressive craftmanship. It's on par with a guy I saw at Oshkosh 81. He had a table set up in the "Fly Market" area with a beautiful little radial engine. I thought it was just a beautiful piece of artwork suitable for hanging on your wall until he started it! IIRC, it was a 5 or 7 cylinder radial engine. You could see the connecting rods work. Think about it - he had to make virtually everything in that engine (valves, spark plugs, cylinders, pistons, etc). It was an amazing accomplishment that cost somewhere around $1000.

People who can do things like building their own vacuum tubes or making functioning model radial engines amaze me. It's good to know people like that still exist.

It is like an episode of the A-Team or MacGyver come to life.

That was very hot! I wish I had a soldering iron like the one that he has!

Are you talking about that spot-welding machine Dennis?

Cool! I've wanted to build my own theremin for years, but despaired of being able to get the tubes for it. Looks like I can move that project up in the queue now!