They are not called vias, they are just plated through holes. Vias are normally filled.
Trust no-one when it comes to footprints. You should have the socket to hand. If the holes are not large enough go ahead and alter the footprint pads.
Those lightbulbs have been obsolete for many years, I find it amazing tat they’re even in KiCad.
I don’t know if the original was designed for direct mounting or for a socket, but it’s easy to modify it yourself. Just hover over the footprint, press [Ctrl + e]* to load it in the footprint editor and make your pads and holes bigger. When finished, just close the Footprint Editor, and KiCad will prompt you to save the changes back into your project.
And yes, it’s good to verify such things.
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Thank you for the quick and helpful suggestions.
I was able to edit one footprint, but noticed it didn’t carry over to the other two footprints. Is there a way to make this change to the library footprint itself?
One thing is that now the “courtyards” around each pin are overlapping. Does that pose a problem for the fabricator?
When you edit a footprint you have the options of editing the copy in the layout or the one in the library. You should have either edited the library footprint and then updated the layout footprints or pushed the layout copy back to the library and then updated the other footprints from there.
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I get an error that library.pretty is read-only when I try to save back to the library.
I’ve made my larger holes but DRC is not happy now:
Is there a way to expand the circle of holes in a controlled, symmetrical way?
That’s expected, the standard libraries are read-only as they will be updated when KiCad is updated so you should not store personal versions there. You’ll have to set up personal footprint libraries. Read this FAQ:
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Thanks for that clarification on libraries.
When I create a new library, it seems impossible to find in the component placer though. Seems KiCad wants to create a new user library every time, rather than add new item to my existing user library.
You’ll get there eventually with reading docs and practice.
I found a general purpose PCB mount 9-pin tube socket and these are the specs:
This is the socket in question:
Trying to modify existing footprint, but I cannot find a command to expand the diameter of the array of pins. How would I do this, short of manually moving and guessing where each pin goes?
I wish I could see better! Reading is a luxury my eyes no longer afford me. 
There is no way in KiCad to expand the radius of a circular array of pads in KiCad directly.
But it’s quite easy to create a new footprint. But the first thing you have to master is how to handle libraries.
Once you have a writable library, you can use: Footprint Editor / File / Create Footprint / Circular Pad Array. This is a footprint generator wizard designed for circular pad arrays. If you create a pad array with 10 pads, they will be at 36 degree angles. After the array is created simply delete one pad.
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So modifying an existing footprint is no good… this was my attempt at manually adjusting the pin locations:
Starting from scratch then, seems to be the only option. Looks like I’m not going to finalize this tonight. No time to dive down the rabbit hole at this time.
The pads are rotated 180° from where they should be.
Okay, exported to Footprint Editor… but now, how to rotate so it’s oriented like the tube socket footprint from earlier?
Ah, I made the radius too small. Start over?
Made new footprint from scratch. But orientation isn’t right. The gap should be at bottom. How do I rotate this so it’s oriented correctly?
I found the rotate tool, but it’s in 90° increments only… The orientation is still not right. The gap (pin 10) should be at bottom.
Audiophiles believe they subjectively ‘sound’ much better. However when it comes to objective things like S/N ratio, THD, Freq response, IM distortion, etc, etc, objective measurements don’t align with Audiophiles subjective ‘feels’. Then there’s . . . vinyl. I see that hipsters are getting back into cassette tapes now. 
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Yes, just start over. That is the easiest, and 10 seconds of work.
And then, with the “Angle” you can modify the start angle.
Another simple method is: Footprint Editor / Edit / Renumber Pads Then (re) start with pad 1 and click on them in the order you prefer.
But if you wish, you can also rotate the footprint you already created, but you need another function. First select everything (or better maybe, only the pads), and then a right click and from the context menu, select: Position Tools / Move Exactly. Then don’t touch the X and Y coordinates, but only enter an angle. I used 23 degrees in the screenshot below.
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Wow, very helpful tips I would not have found in hours of google searching. Thank you!
I did update the socket footprints and it creates some very difficult to rectify DRC violations. Dozens of them.
I thought I’d try using the original footprints, and finding sockets that match those diameter dimensions. I should be able to solder these directly to the PCB and then just plug in the tubes.
WRT, the sound of tube audio, I’ll say this: there’s a growing number of “AudioPhools” out there. “Analog is better” and all that jazz. My system is all solid state, thank you very much. 
I’m just doing this because of the learning opportunity and the fact that a customer gave me this ST-70 some years ago. Stock performance is lacking. So I want to use my improved design on it. Then upgrade other customers’ ST-70 amps when they need it. I’ll have 5 PCBs with which to fill customer requests.
Have you tried looking for something that someone else has created in the hopes that you’re not the first user?
ex.
https://app.ultralibrarian.com/search?queryText=VT9-PT
etc.etc
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Thank you for pointing me to the Belton socket footprints.
I tried installing that Import LIB plugin, but maybe it’s too old? I get this error:
I re routed my PCB with larger tube socket footprints. Playing with different variations to see what works best.
May I suggest you pick a strategy and stick with it for a while.
Sure, there are many footprint out there with varying quality, and some may be quite close / good. But still, my own preference is to simply make it myself. I have already shown it’s pretty simple to make a circular pad array with any number of pads, pad size and diameter, by simply punching in some numbers.
And I agree, that getting some footprint online CAN be quicker then making it yourself, but the counter argument is that you can make any footprint yourself, while the skills you gain also help if you want to search for footprints later and have to make small adjustments to them.
The choice is yours.
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I start from a position of distrust of third-party symbols and footprints. In the time needed to verify and sanitise them I can make one using the editors.
Here’s one I made for a nixie, one of those that had leads instead of pins. It was done using the Footprint Wizard, which has a predecessor to the make array of pads function in current KiCad versions.
I had 6 from my collection from decades ago. I used the dimension data from the datasheet, and splayed the pads a bit. The dot in the footprint matches the red dot on the glass envelope.
Here are the PCBA’ed modules in action. The warp reminds me why I hate perfboard. Hopefully I can hide this mess when I find a suitable project case. For the next set of nixies (a different model) I would also design a PCB for the base plate. Hack and learn.
