Great to see this. I worked in the drawing office (1'56") and the engineering department (in the second minute) during my electrical apprenticeship at Mullard Simonstone near Burnley in the UK from 1979 to 1982, as well as many other departments in the glass factory and the CRT assembly factory. All Simonstone apprentices including myself did their first year at Mullard Blackburn a few miles away. We had a great engineering team and could design and build pretty much anything. Simonstone was the largest CRT manufacturer in Europe at that time turning out a CRT every 2 seconds 24/7/365. Sadly the factory closed many years ago and is now a business park. The processes shown in this video are for black and white tubes. Only colour tubes were made during my time there and some of the processes were far more advanced by then.

The most complete and descriptive explanation of picture tube manufacturing I’ve ever seen. Excellent video. Thanks.

What is amazing to me is the amount of automation already in use on the production line considering this was made in the 50s.

14:05, the graphite coating man looks like he has complete job satisfaction. Great video, super interesting.

Super-detailed, beautiful documentary! The amount of work and care put into the manufacturing process is amazing. Thanks for uploading!

The art of making such excellent documentaries has been lost long before CRT became obsolete. Replaced by flashy intros, short shots and long interviews. Not that anyone would care though what the technology behind their screen is anyway.

In 2020 watching a ton of people doing all sorts of hand operations, and constantly hearing the word "Automatic" wow, that was a lot of hand work.

It's hard to imagine all those tubes and many others buried in landfills now.

Beautiful film. Many thanks for sharing.

What an amazing film! I wonder did anyone ever stop to think if all the heat/ chemical / HT voltage/ repetitious processes had an effect on worker's health? A 17" monochrome CRT is a heavy and explosive glass bulb!

Mullard in the UK was similar to Sylvania in the US in many ways, for example like Sylvania, which was a subsidiary of GTE, Mullard was a subsidiary of Philips. And Mullard's electronics research activities in the UK in all areas of the industry paralleled Sylvania's own extensive involvement in everything from military and aerospace, to computers and industrial electronics. And sadly, both great companies are now history.

Manual production workers look to be much more dignified and important in white coats.

Amazing Video of the tube factory and labs. I still think the vacuum tube has many other poosibilities Thanks for video from me Anthony in Canada , ham radio VE4AKF

Very interesting. Unless I’m mistaken, this was made by my late uncle. He made a vast number of educational films for Mullards/Phillips as well as various documentaries.

Really awesome video, thanks for the upload!

Fascinating! Excellent video! Amazing processes!

great documentary. who knew a decade later all this machinery was obsolete and new machines made to produce them faster with less human interaction. when i was a kid during the 70s i saw how tv's were made at an RCA tube factory, it still fascinates me today

Just look at all those diffusion pumps!

Nos tempos de ouro a mão de obra era grande. E a vida era mais simples e melhor! Rio de Janeiro RJ Brasil

I love this video. Watched it many times. I love my 1969 el34 s.

Fascinating thanks for sharing!

The health and safety chap was away the day they filmed and boy does it show!

These were just monochrome tubes. Would like to see how they applied the the phosphor coating and shadow mask into the manufacture of colour tubes. Great video though, made in the days of the BVA. (British valve association)

Awesome! Technologically definitely light years ahead of contemporary sheep shearing.

Highly interesting and informative.

Awesome, thanks.

I remember as a kid someone told me that one day tv’s will be hung on the wall like a picture didn’t believe em

Excelente audio.

Complexity and quality - the latter surely lost to history

Mullard Radio engineering products were the best in the world..

Love this video tutorial

Yes the film was made in the 1950's

No wonder the radio and TV men always said "Mullard valves are Top Shelf stuff"

The research, design, tooling, resources and labor along with many other costs is a huge investment. Think of all the problems, headaches and countless meetings that go into determining if the whole effort is going to payoff in a given amount of time, plus the consideration of the economic forecast and the rapidly changing technology. That's a big gamble with all kinds of unforeseen problem like design issues showing up and new competition popping up.

Just ran across this. Will be watching!!

I guess this is pre-1960s, no aluminium internal coating.

in color TVs, if we have shadow mask and precise positions of blue red and green phosporus dots, how do picture streching, skewing, rotating and even resolution change work?

What was the incentive for producing these documentaries ? Was it for internal training, advertising to customers ? Or advertising to potentialinvestors ? It seems like they show a lot of trade secrets

The narrator sounds like he says "yes your majesty" a lot.

Можно сказать - учебный фильм и популяризатор науки того времени. Сейчас рассказать так просто, как делается современный процессор, не получится.

The narrator sounds like the guy from Rob Roy who gets cut almost in half

Its an MW-4369?

I've noticed that the commentary in British doco's of the time always used "Received pronunciation" All terribly proper old boy....

Ẁhat was the name of the insulating coating on the heater? It sounded like alundon.

That was when QC meant something now its a 10 year old Chinese kid with a rubber stamp who has no idea what QC is.

Im surprised the cathode assembly is not total in line with axis of the tube but skewed a noticeable bit.

Top 10 videos killed the informative documentaries.

It took a load of 'Steam Punk' to assemble these bad puppies...

The blue gun looked a bit "off beam" in that last tube. :-)

Thank God TV was only a fad!

all this for black & white TV

I appreciate how he says TUBE, and not CHOOB, as most Brits, Aussies and Kiwis say today.

Ther quality of sylvania valves were much better than Mullards. Mullard tv tubes were bad back in the fifties they wernt aluminised, other manufactures were.after a couple years of use they went dim. Our tv then jhad a mw4364 tube in it after 2 years had to be renewed emission was down. Mullard valves seemed to me to be a poor mans valve,. built like british cars using the that´ll do mentality. on the other hand RCA valves wer.e made with great care.- Take a look at a 12ax7 or 12au7 comparer then to a ecc81 or an ecc82.