The PHILCO Phorum

One more

The zenith 10s669 is coming along nicely, cabinet has been painted black lacquer and clear coated with gloss piano clear lacquer. Now I am wet sanding and polishing out in the photos. The wood face control panel was painted and rubbed out seprate from cabinet to allow for best results on finish and rubout. The radio chassis , speaker and loop antenna were serviced, speaker was repainted and box cover for loop antenna was redone as well and will be seen in next post of completed radio. Thanks for looking.

Woah! Loooooking Gooood!

Just beautiful. Fred when you polish down the surfaces are you using something like 3M polishing liquids..that are graduated according to abrasive quality? I can sure appreciate having the right equipment to get away from all the by hand rub outs some of us do/

Your exactly right, 3m products is what I use . The pictures I posted doesn't do justice to the final product, there is to much glare in shop but when i get the radio home I will take some good pictures

Thanks for that Fred. I dont refinish enough to have actually tried the 3M products but I know auto finishers are big on the process which makes absolute sense to me. Why play around with different abrasive mixtures when a system has been all worked out. Now Ill definitely try some on a next case/

Well this is it, one of a kind. Completely not done but very close , will have to do some cabinet touch up and maybe change grill cloth out to something else don't know yet on that. There is a little compound in a few crevices that needs to be taken care of and needs to be waxed after a few weeks , have to let the lacquer cure out before I do any waxing and being careful not to get into any crevices, its very hard to get out once in there. The sound of this set is amazing , sure am glad I did it because it looks wonderful and only one in the world that I know of, like this. No shabby chick or butcher job on this one folks. High quality at its best on this antique radio, so so smooth its like glass just like a high dollar piano, my car refinishing skills really paid off on this one .Thanks for looking and I will start another radio project soon maybe the 37-650px

Couple more for good measure

Very nice Fred!

Here's a good picture with more lighting, before I got it home

Fred,

As everything you do, top notch, quality impeccable, looks gorgeous, the customer, I am sure, will be thrilled, provided Greyhound does not deliver it to some remote place in Laos jungle.
This said, I do not like black Zeniths, though I do like them otherwise. But, that's me, De gustibus no est disputandum, as we all agree.

Great job.

Wow Fred, that set is drop dead gorgeous!! Stunning job. I need to apprentice under someone like you as I wish I had the expertise to do cabinets.

Ron

Sorry Fred
It's too black and to shiny for me
But great work though

Sam

Shines do. Hope I can get my skill level to that point before the end.

I am not a big fan of "interpretive" jobs on radios, but that is a fine job and a nice looking set! 

Bravo Zulu!!!    

Fred, what you really should do is find an original ebony finish '30s Zenith and do the same thing.  AND then take it to the next VRPS meet. I think this would result in another award. 

I don't use the paste-type compounds when finishing my sets, as it is such a pain in the _______ (rhymes with "grass") to clean the remnants of the paste from the joints, etc... Instead I either dry/wet sand with finer and finer grades of paper to #2000 grit, OR I use pumice/paraffin  oil and then rottenstone/paraffin oil.  I use soapy water when I wet sand. Dick Oliver, bless him, taught me that during one of his many (many, many, many) lectures to me. 

Funny thing... Dick would start asking questions about what I was doing on a project. He would keep asking them until I gave the "wrong" answer, and then the lectures would start. IF I kept answering "rightly," he would change the subject to "are you still using stain and poly finish on your sets?" (I had not transitioned to lacquer back then.) 
THEN the lecture would start. 

BUT thanks to Dick and Henry Harmony, a Great American, I did eventually go to lacquer finishes and have never looked back.