Anyone wear gloves to handle vacuum tubes?

@faustuss ,

You are correct!

I’m totally disputing this. Since the ideal material for storing acids is glass, and highly corrosive hydrofluoric acid is about the only acid that etches glass, this is pegging my Poppycock meter to the point I had to unplug it and take an aspirin. Some manufactures literally acid etched their date codes on their tubes without stressing the integrity of the glass after decades. 🤔

They also store caustic acids in polyethylene, its not the end of the world and its not 400 degrees fahrenheit plus!

I know a number of old timers who have used everything, including high power transmitter tubes that get very hot, to tungar tubes, and mercury vapor tubes, and they all handle the tubes without gloves.  Tubes are nothing like halogen or metsl halide bulbs.  These fail because their high heat carbonizes oils from skin to form a dark spot on the glass.  That spot then absorbs light instead of letting the light pass through and that spot then heats up to a much higher temperature than the surrounding glass and this creates a weak spot that fails and causes the bulb to explodes.  Also, the internal gas in these bulbs develop extreme pressure (it is not a vacuum).  Even if a tube had a dark spot on it, it doesn’t emit enough light to heat up and fail.  People write on tubes with marker pens to no ill effects.

Interesting responses. Thanks

I'll keep doing what I've done, which is mostly using cloth gloves. If I don't, I wipe them down with soft cotton cloth. I don't normally handle them when hot/warm but if I do, I have used the gloves. They don't seem to be terribly hot, certainly not like a halogen bulb which would cause severe burns, would even burn your cloth glove. 

Thanks for all the input.

The only times I wear gloves is when it's wood (not mine....Lumber....) or the 10' pole I carry around Here. 😏

John Harvey Kellog....wade into this morass.... and there's a whole lot of it... ;)

Other times...heavy, oily, caustic... I'm fond of the skin on my digits, 'cuz they allow me to 'do other things'....

@hilde45 ....more 'lubricious', right? *L*

tube condoms