The PHILCO Phorum

Went to our local Goodwill today to look for an affordable computer monitor and keyboard to put with a desktop tower I was given. (Yeah, I blew up another laptop and combined the two into the franken-laptop I am posting this on! ) Anyways, I never made it past the front desk as there was a Philco lowboy there for sale, a model 95! I bought it and decided I could look for computer parts later! A Philco is more important! The cabinet is ok, though the grill is broken (as usual). Electronically, this radio checked out fine except the speaker which has a bad output transformer and the canvas cone is rather damaged. Right now the 95 is working well on the pair of globe 45s that came with it (and fell out on the way home!) and another model G speaker I borrowed from my extra model 87. Hopefully I can either repair the original speaker or I might be able to snag a parts 95 I found last month if the guy is still willing to sell.

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Could be saved.
The chassis is clean.
The cabinet will require some major repair. Like grillwork.

What are the holes in the bottom shelf for? Extra possible speakers?

A friend I know said he can recall seeing plenty of these lowboys about 20 years ago with perfect grills. Now all we seem to find in my area are the broken ones! At least this is better than the last 95 lowboy I found. The legs were chopped off it and it had a home-made front panel. That's the parts radio I refer to in my earlier post. I wish I had some good wood-working skills and the tools as I would love to start making reproductions of these grills to replace all the broken ones out there.

jayce one name to call

I know how to make the grilles but I do not have an original to use as a template, I have a Philco 96 in a 1930 version of a lowboy cabinet so it uses the turned grill bars rather then fretwork.
Regards
Arran

Good find, just think what it will take in fifty years to make any of todays modern electonics work. David

Just had some excitement with the 95! It was working well until I bumped the cord and then, POW! The plug end shorted out and tripped the breaker! Cut the cord down, put on a better end and brought the unit up on the bulbs after resetting the breaker and there is no permanent harm apparent. Even so, I think I'll just replace the whole power cord as I see other spots in it I don't trust. Put me in mind of my 87 highboy when I first got it. Worked well for a week, then the plug end did a fireworks show for me one day. Oddly, that never tripped the breaker on that circuit and it had a perfect looking cord on it. I think the 95 might start my fall "Replace Those Old Cords" program.

Art Hoch Wrote:What are the holes in the bottom shelf for? Extra possible speakers?

I don't know, but I do know they are not for extra speakers. I think all 1929 Philco lowboys have those two holes.

Could be to enhance the bass sound. They made baffles similar to that in speakers later in more recent stereos.

Jayce,

That's a pretty nice find to have come from Goodwill.

I'll bet that speaker can be fixed up without too much trouble. I've repaired torn speaker cones with used fabric softner sheets that my clothes dryer uses. It's some kind of tough, very thin cloth-like material. I've used as cement Aleene's Original Tacky Glue to hold it all together. It dries flexible and clear. Works pretty well.

Good luck with your radio.

Tom