THE GREAT MULLARD MAGIC BLOG — tube phosphor

Just in case you thought Sebastian and his co-workers had to heft these long and wieldy tubes to remove the supernate, actually, no, they were placed on a rotating carrel that was tilted at such a rate as not to disturb the accreted phosophor film that sat on the inner face of the tube.  Here you see a laboratory coating system, however, the full size plant used a similar principle  - such fun!

Here we have a nice photograph taken at Mullards in 1952 of Sebastian Firkle who is laying the luminescent screen in a Mullard picture tube.  The screen phosphor was suspended in a liquid carrier and introduced into the envelope. After settling, the supernatant liquid was carefully decanted off leaving an even distribution of phosphor which was then dried under a gentle stream of cold air.