Another Grill Cloth Question
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Joined: Nov 2012
City: Wilmington NC
We all know about the grill cloth shortage, and I thank you for your links to what little seems to remain.
How consistant was Philco in using the same cloth in each example of a particular year?
I have looked carefully at the pictures of the 1940-1941 (40-295 and 41-296) model years, and both depict what I am calling a 'wall of bricks' pattern cloth.
My 41-296X however, seems to have the same cloth pattern as the 41-90CB in the Philco gallery, a gold thread with horizontal oxblood (?) or brown yarn striping.
Was that a later repair job, or was it likely to have come from the factory that way?
Is any pattern of 1940-1941 cloth okay -if I can find it?
This guy:
http://www.radio-workshop.co.uk/grille-cloth.shtml
seems to have a source that matches the photos I called 'wall of bricks' in your gallery, but; A) His site says he will not outright sell fabric, but is only willing to install it himself, and he's in the UK.
B) (Just between us...) I just did not care for the workmanship in the pictures on his site.
I am going to try and clean out the water stains, blood (?) stains and repair the cat damage  but I'm not optimistic.
If I cannot find cloth from 1940-1941, I have been considering a vintage oxblood repro for Fender Amps, figuring that if it has to be replaced, use vintage cloth from the tube era.
or
Get some gold loose weave 'craft store special' fabric and weave a burgundy yarn through it to try my best to fake it.
Which would you guys do?
Thanks.
Oh, if I cant fix the damages or stains and opt for replacement, I assume you guys will want the cloth to cut up for smaller projects?
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That site says, and I quote, "Replacing grille cloth should not be attempted as a DIY project", really? In all honesty if someone can't figure out how to install their own grille cloth then they should probably pick another hobby like collecting stamps. It's something that anyone could figure out with some spray contact adhesive and some practice with a scraps of old cloth and plywood. In any event I have seen other sources from Britain and Europe that sell reproduction grille cloth so I would be very surprised if this "gentleman" had anything the others did not.
Regards
Arran
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City: Wilmington NC
Yes, I read that too, and thought anyone who says that clearly has trouble deciding if the milk or the cornflakes go in the bowl first.
I am curious where this guy is getting his supply though.
I have looked at a few overseas sites and haven't found just what I was looking for; but I pulled out all the stops and tried a search for 'alte lautsprecherstoff' today, and found this lady:
http://www.corrienmaas.nl/Engels/hoofdframe.htm
who has a number of speaker cloth patterns, and claims that if you send her a sample, she will do her best to reproduce it, even apparently to the extent that she will send you approval samples when in doubt about color or thread type.
She looks a bit expensive, and I'd prefer American parts throughout, but any port in a storm I guess.
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City: Wilmington NC
I contacted a company in Wisconcin who manufacture specialty cloth, they emailed me back saying that they would be willing to reproduce cloth to the best of their ability.
"Please send me what samples you might have (I'd return them, of course) as well as any links or information regarding the materials used in these fabrics.
Reproducing a pattern is not that difficult, but often the yarns used were odd blends of natural and synthetic materials that are difficult to duplicate.
I could probably give you some idea of what you'd need in terms of textile terms, etc. and possibly offer to make some for you or refer your request to someone who can.
Our mailing address is The Woolgatherers, 25-A N. Main St., Fond du Lac, WI 54935.
Sara von Tresckow, Fond du Lac, WI
sarav@woolgatherers.com"
http://www.woolgatherers.com
I plan to go this route, and I hope the information will help you guys as well.
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This is good news, but does it have to be wool based or is that just a name? The original grille cloths found in our radios were made out of Rayon fiber I think, though any natural or artificial silk would work, nylon, polyester, etc.
Regards
Arran
Posts: 22
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City: Wilmington NC
I think it is just a name.
She says she'll duplicate whatever materials were used to the best of her ability, I am mailing her my speaker grille tomorrow (monday) so she can duplicate materials and threadcounts etc. and give me a quote. I will keep you posted.
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City: Clayton, NC
Hmmmm.... Not BAAA-D!
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City: Ferdinand
State, Province, Country: Indiana
Yes, do keep us posted, FightingHellfish. If she can make good reproduction cloth at a reasonable price, I'll be sending her some business in the future.
--
Ron Ramirez
Ferdinand IN
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Yes, we will all be sending her some business. Get the most popular of the Philco cloth going. We will all chip in for buying. A light at the end of the tunnel.
Jerry
A friend in need is a pest! Bill Slee ca 1970.
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City: Medford OR (OR what?)
GRC-24 which was used in a lot of other makes as well as Philco would be good. I think that that pattern is the best "guess" for any unknown 30's table radio, not to mention a few Zenith consoles.
(This post was last modified: 11-19-2012, 07:55 PM by Phlogiston.)
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City: Wisconsin
I live eight miles outside of Fond du Lac along Lake Winnebago. I plan to go in to town this afternoon for a haircut and will stop by Woolgatherer's with a sample of cloth from my 42-PT66. I'll let everyone know what I turn up.
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City: Merrick, Long Island, NY
You know there are hobby/custum clothing knitting machines that have been used for a very long time, some of them computer driven. Given the correct material almost anything can be done. My little old lady can still knit up a storm, but even if I asked nicely, I would probably be sent to the doghouse if I asked her to make a yard of grille cloth. Rescue jobs, yeah, been there and amazed.
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City: Wisconsin
After my haircut, I walked across the street to the Woolgatherers and had a real nice conversation with the owner. It was obvious from the start that she really knew what she was talking about. She has had a fairly large shop in the downtown area for the past six years. She has huge supplies of looms and weaving materials. She sells these to hobbiests and manufacturers cloth to order. She showed me a number of products she wove from loosly wooven scarfs to very tightly woven car upholstery fabric (Fond du Lac has a large population of car restoration hobbyists). She has a large number (10 or more) looms of varying sizes, all with projects in progress.
I showed her the grill cloth from my 42 -PT66. This was a loosely woven six by six inch square for a table top radio. There was no pattern. This gave her some idea as to what we were looking at. Her comments were:
1. If we were firm on using period threads it would be very difficult. Even though the original fiber may be a synthetic it would be hard to come by as the technology has moved well beyond the older synthetics. If we could accept natural fibers or modern synthetics that were matched fairly closely she could do the work.
2. Doing individual small orders would not be practical due to the set up time. Things would not become cost effective till we reached an order of 10 to 20 yards. For example, the six inch wide piece I showed her could be done for about $29/yard (six inches by 36 inches). The more complex patterns and wider pieces would obviously be more expensive.
3. Lead time to deliver 20 yards of a pattern would be 1.5 to 2 months.
4. Ideally, she would need a swatch of the fabric as a sample. A good quality color scan might also do the job.
5. She would like to get a number of different patterns to determine if the warp (or was it woof) threads were the same. If so, she could do a production run for a number of the patterns with one set up.
The way we left it was that I would provide this information to everyone to determine the interest level. If you are interested in buying cloth for your projects, please send me a private message indicating the number of yards and cloth number.
I would also try to determine what the most common and in demand patterns would be and I would get a sample of them for her. Ron, perhaps you could help me with coming up with the more common grill cloth numbers. Also, would you have samples of the material.
Once I get some solid data as to what we need and the number of yards of each, I would go back to her and get an estimate. I can act as the middle man on this by ordering a large amount and breaking it down into individual orders.
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Have you got any feedback on this yet?
1) The material was most likely Rayon, but I am not much in love with Rayon so a better thread wouldn't bother me.
2) For some patterns I would buy 10 yards and keep the rest on hand, I hate not having the cloth I need.
3) thats not bad there is a lot of setup involved.
4) Ask if a scan plus a very small sample would work.
5) 1937 V pattern.
John
Las Vegas, NV USA
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Cloth is usually measured by the linear yard not the square yard, most rolls of fabric are 36 inches wide. So if it works out to $29 a linear yard then that is a figure that makes sense. One of the chevron patterned Philco cloths would be a good one to start with as you could produce and sell 20 or more yards easily. Another good one would be the cloth used in Philco 70 and 90 sets, because of the pattern used almost all of the 36'' width would be useful.
Regards
Arran
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