[Ron Ramirez]

Hi John (Raleigh)

Congratulations!

Since my last post in this thread, I have found that, according to the 1941 Philco parts catalog, the tan sockets have "special moisture-proof insulation". I also discovered that they seem to stand up to the heat of a soldering iron better if you leave the tube in the socket. This trick does not work every time, but it helps. Oh, and it seems to work better to use a small pencil iron on the contacts of these sockets instead of the big high-wattage guns.

Of course, all of that information does you no good when the socket is cracked. And I still say that those sockets were cheaply made.

I'm not sure whether it works because I baked the coil or because I reflowed the solder,

Perhaps a combination of both? In any event, yes, alignment should help.