[NJARC] How did National Union make Inditrons?

[Jim Whartenby]

AlexAccording to http://www.decodesystems.com/nixie-history.html, Inditrons are difficult to find so it is conceivable that assembly was more by hand then machine.  That does not mean that the numerical assembly was "free formed" totally by hand.  
To speed up assembly and foster uniformity, fixtures would be used to hold the wire in position for welding and wire cutting.  Then it would be a much simpler matter to weld the preformed digits in place.  
When I was working for Microwave Semiconductor Corporation many years ago, one of the production technicians was quite good at making little aluminum fixtures to bend micro-coax into complex shapes which were very uniform.  It only took a few fixtures on the assembly line to greatly speed up a particular microwave amplifier assembly process.   It would only be a matter of making more fixtures to produce enough digits for the tube assemblers.Jim
      From: Alex Magoun <a.b.magoun at ieee.org>
 To: njarc at mailman.qth.net 
 Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2018 3:04 PM
 Subject: [NJARC] How did National Union make Inditrons?
   
National Union being an Orange, NJ, company making vacuum tubes, I thought perhaps someone might know someone who worked there on Inditrons: http://www.tube-tester.com/sites/nixie/dat_arch/inditron.pdf. Apparently these were actually manufactured in an Illinois factory, but nonetheless, any details of fabrication? One writer claims the numeric wires were "hand bent," something I find hard to believe.
Alex
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