Fact or Fiction?

[Cliff Schecht]

I don't ever bother cleaning the crud off of tubes going in a guitar amp. With older tubes cleaning off the crud can also clean off all of the markings on a tube. A lot of my pulls are covered in dirt or grime and have tape or labels stuck on them and none of them have failed because of this. Preamp tubes I'm especially not worried about but as it was pointed out, even the power tubes we use aren't running that hot. Now if I was going to fire up my 833A with a 10V, 10A filament (!!!) and run it at 1000W CCS then yes, I'd probably clean the fingerprints and such off.

Also in really high voltage equipment too much dirt or grime inside can cause arcing. We don't see this so much because we are running relatively low voltages to our tubes compared to what your typical transmitter does.

[Reeltarded]

Didn't your mother ever tell you that touching your tube would grow hair on your palms?

Yeah. I bought gorilla gloves. That freaks her out too.

[LeftyStrat]

Yeah. I bought gorilla gloves. That freaks her out too.

Pretty sure that haircut freaks her out more than your gorilla glove fleshlight.

[Reeltarded]

lol I was going to mention that as well.

I can't help about the shape I'm in....

[surfsup]

"flesh-light"??? Do I even want to know?

[Structo]

Silly boys!

I'll say it again, I think it is a result of the car headlight bulbs that state you are not supposed to touch them as the oils can create hot spots.
Those are Halogen bulbs and get much hotter than most vacuum tubes.

But the youngsters (and inexperienced) come away from that thinking that since the headlight bulb is glass and a vacuum tube is glass, then they must both be the same......