METHOD OF MAKING AN IN-LINE ELECTRON GUN OF A COLOR PICTURE TUBE

An improved method of making a color picture tube electron gun (26) includes the selection and assembly of a plurality of cathodes (34) and a plurality of electrodes (36,38,40,42,44,46) longitudinally spaced from the cathodes. The improvement comprises at least three additional steps. First, the amount and direction of electron beam misconvergence at the tube screen, as caused by the thermal expansion of each individual electrode during electron gun warmup, is determined. A first group of electrodes (38,42,44) will cause misconvergence in a first direction, and a second group of electrodes (36,40,44,46) will cause misconvergence in a second direction. Second, the individual contributions of the electrodes to misconvergence during tube warmup are summed. The net effect of thermal expansion of the entire electron gun is a misconvergence in the first direction. Third, at least one of the electrodes (38,42) in the first group of electrodes is formed from a material having a lower coefficient of thermal expansion than the coefficient of thermal expansion used in the first step of determining misconvergence caused by the thermal expansion of each individual electrode.