Michael Black wrote:

There was one from Europe a few years ago that got a lot of travel.

But in 1964 or 65 there was an article in QST about an Argentinian who wa
making tubes. He was mostly interested in making his own power tubes for
transmitters, so his own design rather than copying well known tubes.

They talk about it in the areas where antique radios are discussed,
there's a certain plateau one has to reach and most aren't up there yet.

What I wonder is if it was "common" in the early days of tubes. People
made all kinds of things, I've read that they'd get some quartz and make
their own crystals even and certainly people made their own paper
capacitors in the early days, so making a tube might not be out of the
norm, so long as someone had the resources. It might perhaps have been
more "common" back then, since tubes were still new, but perhaps not. But
it would be interesting to see if there were articles about making your
own tubes back then.

Getting enough vacuum seems to be a common issue, at least once you have
some success as a glass blower. I haven't seen much about whether people
are making triodes or anything more complicated.

Michael

There was alot of tube bootlegging going on in the early 20s. I'm think
a guy with the specialized equipment to make one tube would be strongly
tempted to make a dozen or hire people and make hundreds or more.