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Removing Rodent Odor
#16

Tom;

I found that the Walmart nearest us carried the OUT product, so I bought some of that today and some Elmer's wood glue. I bought two strap type clamps to use to apply force to the two top ends of the cabinet. They wrap all the way around the bottom of the cabinet and I put some wood blocks over the area where I reglued the veneer near the front of the top. I tried the straw method and had some success with that. I finally wound up pushing glue up under the loosened veneer with a spatula or putty knife. That worked well too. The Elmer's wood glue is pretty thick to work into tight spots. Maybe I should have thinned it with some water first. Regular Elmer's glue may have worked as good or better. The glue should be dry within a couple of days. I still have a small area between the top walnut veneer and the thicker veneer level that is currently drying which will be done later. This is true on both sides.    

I sprayed OUT on the top of the chassis shelf to the left and right of where the chassis sat. It immediately started foaming like mad! This product has peroxide in it as its main ingredient. It also has some mild aromatic compound that offsets the odor of peroxide. I used 4 separate applications, wiping it off after a minute or so using paper towels. After each wiping the area was re-sprayed with the foaming action diminishing each time. I am glad to report that the majority of the rodent odor is gone. There is still some that has penetrated the top of the speaker baffle board and the cardboard backing of the center grill and grill cloth. The baffle board will be treated with OUT also. The cardboard backing for the grill cloth will be replaced completely. I am thinking about using Masonite to replace the grill cloth mounting board. I will do the same for the left and right grill and cloth panels too.

I started removing the speaker baffle board and had all the screws removed, but it was still hanging to the bottom of the chassis shelf. I finally pulled out my auto trouble light and a mirror and discovered there were two screws holding the baffle board cleat to the bottom of the chassis shelf. I removed those and the speaker baffle board came out easily, followed by the thick cardboard backing for the center grill cloth. I discovered that the grill cloth that had been hidden and held against the cabinet wood was significantly darker than the grill cloth which was visible with the unit assembled. The cloth had faded a lot over the years. There is also grill cloth on either side of center behind some wooden scroll work. That grill cloth is also glued to some pieces of thick cardboard. The cardboard pieces had a printed woodgrain pattern on their backside. A casual glance from the back would not spot the fact that it was only paper and not wood. The cardboard is about 3/16 of an inch thick.

I had to remove the rotating loop antenna assembly in order to safely access the screws that held the speaker baffle board. The paper over of the loop antenna assembly is partially crushed in one spot near the top. This will have to be repaired.

With the speaker baffle board and grill mount out of the way, I could see that each of the five vertical wooden ribs in front of the center grill are held in place with screws at top and bottom, so they can each be removed for stripping and refinishing.

I spotted two missing wood cleats on the left side viewed from the rear. One is along the bottom flange where the metal glide feet go and another one was on the top side of the chassis shelf. The one on the chassis shelf has a triangular cross section and the one on the bottom flange is just a rectangular cross section.

It is now time to rest.

Joe
#17

Does anyone know what color the original pilot lamp jewel was on the 40-195, 40-200, 40-201? On mine, the jewel is long gone as most seem to be. If I remember correctly someone said it was originally some sort of plastic that deteriorated quickly and disintegrates.

Joe
#18

    I found this grill cloth on http://www.etsy.com/shop/SpeakerFabricSupply?page=1
Is this the cloth that Philco used on their 1940 console sets such as the 40-195, 40-200, 40-201?

Joe
#19

Today I took more wood part out of the cabinet. The vertical ribs in the grill area come out by removing screws at the top and bottom from the rear. Then I did some light sanding of the chassis shelf. It had been drying out after use of the "OFF" product for days. I removed the two side grill boards and cloth. These are just appearance items. No speaker mounts there. I then cleaned more parts of the cabinet interior. Once I had done as much cleaning as I could, I used some shellac I bought yesterday to coat the inside surfaces of the cabinet. This will seal off any lingering rodent odor.

I have to say that the OFF product really does a good job of eliminating the odor. It is important to not allow any of it to get on the exterior finish of the cabinet.

Joe
#20

Here is the nice 36-1565-4 speaker that I received from Ron. I mounted it to the baffle board and made some minor patches to the cone using some coffee filter paper.

The speaker frame has considerable rust, and I will be sanding, priming and repainting the frame to get it looking nice too.

Joe
   
   
#21

Don't you love how "two day priority" takes a week or more? Icon_rolleyes I should have sent it to you via parcel select, I don't think it would have been much slower. Sorry about that. I don't know what's getting into the PO these days, but all of their priority packages are getting slower...and slooowwwwerrr...

--
Ron Ramirez
Ferdinand IN
#22

BTW, the original pilot lamp jewel was red - and was not jewel cut, but slightly convex, plain, with a flat edge surrounding the convex portion.

--
Ron Ramirez
Ferdinand IN
#23

Ron;

I am never surprised at how long it takes for packages to arrive using the US Mail. It just is part of the world as we know it. It gave me time to concentrate on other aspects of the restoration. I am just glad that the speaker did get here and arrived in good condition.

I doubt I will ever find a OEM type pilot lamp jewel. I will likely have to use one of the jewel cut types unless I can figure out a way to fabricate one. That is not too likely since I am not a plastics expert. I have one old piece of equipment that has a green jewel like you describe, but it is still operational and I don't want to canabalize it to restore this radio.

I had a pleasant surprise yesterday when I took the clamps off of the cabinet. I had worked on re-gluing the second layer of veneer which had curled up over 1/4" along the top front edge. Apparently there was enough moisture in the air when I put the clamps on that it re-activated the glue under the top veneer layer and that layer along with the second layer is now re-glued smoothly to the cabinet. I am a little suspicious that it may come loose again. If it does, it should be easy to re-glue that as well.

I managed to get the push-button switches to operate correctly by using a spray of WD-40 to free them up. They were very stiff and hard to push. I plan to wait until I am ready to re-install the chassis in the cabinet before adding the new push-buttons to the switch shafts.

Joe
#24

There was an original Philco jewel on eBay a month or so ago. I have never seen an original in good condition until this one came along; the photos of this one is how I learned how it should look. I was going to try and grab it and then send it to Ed at Renovated Radios for him to replicate, but as it happened, it was during the time I was busy moving...and of course, someone else swooped in and hit the Buy It Now button. You snooze, you lose.

I saved the photos and will contact Ed about it anyway soon. I can measure the diameter of the hole one of these goes in, but would have to guess at the outer diameter of the flange at front. I kinda doubt that he could replicate something just from photos and some guessed-at measurements, but who knows...

--
Ron Ramirez
Ferdinand IN
#25

Here is a picture of the dial glass after I cleaned the backside. I just used a piece of toilet paper and breathed some water vapor onto the surface, then rubbed it with the toilet paper (about the same softness as a Kleenex). This did a good job of removing surface grime etc. without removing the paint.
   
I used some new rubber bands around the ends of the glass to act as a cushion between the glass and the mounting brackets and the back-up plate they attach to. I cleaned the old pads and glue off first before reassembly.

Joe




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