Philips/Muller Metalix Housing with Water Cooling Assembly (ca. late 1920s, 1930s)

This is an early protective Bakelite housing for an X-ray tube—complete with a cone shield and  water cooling assembly! Unfortunately, the most important component, the X-ray tube, was broken and there are now glass fragments rattling around inside. A real shame, because the tube was the famous Metalix tube made by the Philips/Muller Company. Philips (who only started making X-ray tubes in 1922) took over the C.H.F. Muller company in 1927. The innovative feature of the tube was the fact that the body (the canister) was a stainless steel cylinder fused at each end to glass tubes that held the anode and cathode. It was developed in the mid 1920s by A. Bouwers while working for Philips. Bouwers was the same individual who was primarily responsible for developing the first working X-ray tube with a rotating anode in 1929.

One day, I'll take a look inside, but opening it will require more force than I've been willing to employ up to now.

Size: ca 27" long, 2.5" in diameter

Generously donated by Ron Kathren.

The next image is a product description (ca. 1930) of the "Muller Metalix" X-ray tube. The Muller referred to here is the tube's distributer, Waller Muller, it doesn't refer to C.H.F. Muller. The image below it is from a Philips product description (in German). The cross sectional diagrams in both are identical.