02-21-2014, 10:45 PM
Murf;
It's actually not that difficult to restuff tubular paper caps, especially with those axial lead polyester film types, once you develop a technique. As an experiment I did this on a Rogers Ten-60 chassis, many of the originals were Auto Lite brand caps which i thought was interesting. What I did was to take out about four at a time and bake them in a toaster oven until the wax melted and I could pull out the innards with a pair of pliers. Then I took each empty tube, placed it on end, and stuck it back in the oven to let the remaining wax drip out. And extra residue I cleaned up with varsol and or lacquer thinner.
To restuff each paper cap, I made a strip out of cardboard and wrapped it around the new film cap as a shim, and then wedged it into the old tube, some needed a thinner strip, some thicker. Then I filled up each end with a glue gun to mimic the old wax plugs. I haven't been able to find brown glue sticks yet so I settled on an opaque whitish type.
I would not do this with every radio, only all original ones or the more collectable types. It isn't worth doing with a late 40s AC/DC full of replacement bumble bee/Sangamo Little Chiefs for example, but for something like a G.E K-80 it might be.
Regards
Arran
It's actually not that difficult to restuff tubular paper caps, especially with those axial lead polyester film types, once you develop a technique. As an experiment I did this on a Rogers Ten-60 chassis, many of the originals were Auto Lite brand caps which i thought was interesting. What I did was to take out about four at a time and bake them in a toaster oven until the wax melted and I could pull out the innards with a pair of pliers. Then I took each empty tube, placed it on end, and stuck it back in the oven to let the remaining wax drip out. And extra residue I cleaned up with varsol and or lacquer thinner.
To restuff each paper cap, I made a strip out of cardboard and wrapped it around the new film cap as a shim, and then wedged it into the old tube, some needed a thinner strip, some thicker. Then I filled up each end with a glue gun to mimic the old wax plugs. I haven't been able to find brown glue sticks yet so I settled on an opaque whitish type.
I would not do this with every radio, only all original ones or the more collectable types. It isn't worth doing with a late 40s AC/DC full of replacement bumble bee/Sangamo Little Chiefs for example, but for something like a G.E K-80 it might be.
Regards
Arran
