I have this model radio, which had a muddy, crumbly extra dark brown toner all over it, no color variation between the base and the top. I scraped it lightly which removed all of the finish, and there doesn’t appear to ever have been any stain applied to the wood. I want to refinish it properly, but since I haven’t seen a close-up of a maple model, all I know is the dark brown walnut version. The raw edges of the plywood appear to have been originally painted black or very dark brown, and I would think that the base trim should be a different color, maybe a medium walnut or dark walnut toner. Part of the front has a quilted ripple grain, which I do not want to obscure.
I am a passive Philco collector, as such I do not immediately recognize this model number. If you can find the model by number there should be an online original picture. I am rather certain this has a photo finish. That is a paper decal that was installed to replicate a quality wood grain, then a finish applied on top of it.
In a production environment general practice is not to stain the wood but to seal it at the time a photo finish is applied the few coats of lacquer would have a both a transparent toner in most large areas an an opaque toner to obscure poor grain The lacquer finishing dries very rapidly and such a finish routine this cabinet would be done on a moving production line in roughly 30 minutes.
You CAN replicate the photo finish or do what pleases you. You would be likely amazed to see an original finish on this radio. The grain you see now is rather poor.
I believe what you removed was the remains of the photo finish.
There is an alternative to the photo finish, that is to use ultra thin real wood veneers. This are authentic and may or not require some staining or toning to achieve maximum effect.
Correct finishing of real wood causes the wood to achieve a depth to the grain. That, captures the light in the wood cells and reflects back to the eye. This depth follows the eye or the light source.
What cabinet finishing is NOT is a dozen layers of lacquer, it is the correct sequence and materials skillfully applied.
I happen to like that model, as it has a "Deco Locomotive" design.
GL
Chas
Pliny the younger
“nihil novum nihil varium nihil quod non semel spectasse sufficiat”
After all of the repairs are done to the cabinet I will give it a couple of coats of sanding sealer. This will give you a much better idea what the grain will look like in the end. It also will block the grain filler from staining the veneer if you choose a walnut colored product. After grain filling another coat of sanding sealer and light sanding w/400g paper and a block on flat surfaces. Then it's onward to toning which your probably look for either light or medium walnut and extra dark for the trim. I keep a few other colors around as to me the walnut looks a little red so sometimes a little bit of pine which is yellow knocks the red down a bit. Again a coat of sanding sealer and a quick sand to smooth before the final clear coats.
Picking the proper toner can be tricky as the original toner has faded/lighten over the years. I usually will look under the dial bezel where is been cover up.Typically the finish is darker there and is pretty close to the original.
'37 was a big yr for Philco to use the "Philocoat" finish aka photofinish but it doesn't look like your model was one them. Once striped the wood underneath is very light colored like pine or poplar.
When my pals were reading comic books
I was down in the basement in my dad's
workshop. Perusing his Sam's Photofoacts
Vol 1-50 admiring the old set and trying to
figure out what all those squiggly meant.
Circa 1966
Now I think I've got!
This isn't one of the bullet style cabinets with a faux finish, in fact I'm not so sure that it's even one with a maple veneer, it looks like French walnut veneer to me, but it's hard to tell in a photo unless it has be wetted. Maple veneer should be more of a blond colour, and I think they used veneer with a more figured look for the front panel. There was a lot of variation in the darkness of finishes on cabinets used by the big makes, depending on who was doing the work, sometimes they would also use it to hide flaws.
Regards
Arran
(This post was last modified: 04-13-2024, 12:38 PM by Arran.)
The finish that I scraped off was definitely not a photo finish, you could see bits of the grain through the finish, and you could see the darker wood stripes as well. I took a photo of it after having poured some lacquer thinner on the surface, the blonde wood does not darken Much but the dark wood does get darker to provide extra contrast. It actually looks really nice. [attachment=30079
I’ve never toned a radio maple so can’t say which toner would be right but Mohawk has many colors. Use the Ultra Classic dye based version so you see the grain. The pigment based toners are more opaque.
The only issue I can think of is that the maple veneer set in the gallery looks like it may have been stripped, but it looks like whatever shading lacquer was used was on the base, and maybe the edges of the panels, but was it dark brown, black, or something lighter. The maple itself must have bee a sort of golden colour, like colonial rival furniture often was. I have a Canadian Westinghouse AC/DC set with maple veneer and they made the trim and grill bars sort of a yellow ochre or mustard yellow colour, other makes and models used white trim, so there was obviously no convention when it came to maple. By the way that small chip could be repaired by using a piece of a wooden coffee stirrer, one of those long, skinny ones.
Regards
Arran
