Thoughts on mains droppers?

[Aerodyne]

A diode in series with the heater chain - in the manner of the BRC 1400 TV chassis, which used an unrelaible BY126 - would indeed create a reduction in the resistance needed to drop the voltage. Paul Stenning has a handy calculator on his site that allows you to obtain the values for capacitive and diode droppers and their ballast resistors.
http://www.vintage-radio.com/repair-rest...calcs.html
Scroll down to the ZIP file for dropper calcs.
Tony