Opening AppleColor RGB, need safety tips!

[spector@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

	Some of you may recall I had a faulty AppleColor RGB monitor,
where I was having problems with tint, focus and brightness. Well to
make a long story short, I thought I'd save myself the hassle of fixing
it and just replace it with a second-hand one. I did just that a few 
weeks ago, but have now discovered this new Apple monitor is having
problems as well! :/ Or at least I think it is...

	Before I go on, is the following normal?

	- With the screen totally black (ie, a screen saver), and
          the brightness knob set just slightly above the center
          position, is it normal is see a distinct BLUE color?
          If I'm not mistaken, I should see black, or at the
          very least a light or dark grey, but I'm not.

        - With the foreground and background Control Panel colors
          set to yellow, do the following. Turn the brightness
          to the lowest possible setting (darkest) and turn the
          contrast knob to the highest setting (brightest). Now,
          slowly bring the contrast knob down, darkening the 
          display. At some point I will see a distinct GREEN
          color. Is this at all normal?

        - In the NinjaForce "MegaDemo", in the 'Credits' part
          where an image of a ninja appears on screen and text
          credits scroll, what colors are the ninja made up of?
          On my new screen, he appears in shades of brown and
          dark green (as if he were growing mold :). What color
          is this on other monitors?

        - Greyscales appear more grey looking (an ash color grey)
          through my NTSC TV set than on my AppleColor RGB? This
          isn't right, is it? I think I'm seeing green or blue
          in greyscales.

	- With the brightness knob in the center (default) 
          position, is it normal to _not_ see a 100% black
          background? I find I have to turn it quite a bit 
          down to get true-black (ie, if a game has a
          scrolling star-field or my saver kicks in). I think
          I may have to play with the "SCREEN" and "SUB-CONT"
          internal adjustments here, or maybe x-cut-offs?
          Turning the brightness way down isn't a solution,
          since colors start looking strange if too dark.

	Now, unless someone else out there has a monitor like this,
I'm going to assume there's something wrong. I suspect the Red voltage
gun has weakened with age, and playing with the R-Drive and B-Drive pots 
on the CRT circuit board might fix this. However, before I go poking 
inside my monitor to adjust things, I'd like to hear some safety advice. 
If I get an _all plastic_ tool (like a color TV adjustment tool from 
Radio Shack) will this protect me from getting zapped when turning the 
pots? Is keeping one hand behind my back all I need do to be protected 
(and of course avoid touching anything that carries high voltage)? I'd 
have to adjust the tint with the back opened and the monitor's power 
_on_, so I'm a little nervous about this. It may seem I'm being somwhat 
paranoid here, but I hear there's enough high voltage to *kill* you 
in there! :|

Mitchell Spector
m_spect@vega.concordia.ca / spector@vax2.concordia.ca