As mentioned last night in my Philco 47-1230 restoration thread, i happened upon this 1929 R-32 Victor radio. I saw it sitting over in a corner with stuff sitting on top. They were asking $200 but since it was the last day of the sale I got it for $75. Once the Philco is completed in a few weeks I'm going to tackle the Victor. I'm very stoked about this one since it was made the same year as the famous Stock Market crash. It might have belonged to a wealthy person that lost everything and committed suicide, or maybe a wealthy fellow who had his money buried and could afford to buy it. Anyway other than an attempt from someone to put a new power cord in it it looks all original and complete, less the back. Below are some photos I took yesterday before I wiped the outside down with Murphy's oil soap. It's actually very nice for its age.
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Very nice! I finished restoring my mom and dad’s 40-180 and have now decided to tackle my old Victor RE 45 that has been sitting in our family room for years not working.
You may want to clean the cabinet with Go-Jo without pumice. It’s amazing!!
The chassis of your Victor looks exactly like mine. The cabinets are similar, except mine has doors on the front and an Electrola (Phonograph) on top.
Don’t know if you’ve worked on a radio this old, but the filter capacitors reside in one of the cans on top the power and amp chassis. Get a pot, put cooking oil in it, heat with a hot plate till the tar melts and pull the old capacitors out. Interesting!!
Good luck!!
Thanks for the insight Mjeansonne, This will be my second restoration once I get started, so I'm just beginning. Any and all recommendations are well accepted and appreciated!
The filter capacitors were paper by the way, not electrolytic, modern plastic film capacitors can be used as substitutes, also motor capacitors of the correct ratings. Afterward they are pretty much good for life, as long as you get replacements of a reputable brand.
Regards
Arran
I eased electrolytic capacitors in mine. Any problem anyone can think of. Waiting on a tube I have to replace, so if I should change those capacitors I still have time.
Russ +10
You don't want to use electrolytic caps in the power supply in these early AC sets. They where designed using large foil/paper caps. Small electrolytic caps can't handle the ripple current and will short after several months of operation. Use mylars instead. Also stick pretty close to the original capacitance value. By adding more it will cause the power supply output voltage to rise. Most are rated @ 630v which is fine.
A few yrs ago I was servicing a Philco 87. Replaced all of the faulty parts and used some 4.7mf@450v electrolytics in series to replace the 2mf or so caps in the p/s. All was well and the set was my go to set for abt 4 months till I was listening to it and the volume started to drop. Dropped down to nil. Took a quick look in the back and the 80 tube was lit a bright red (not good). Upon disassembly the input cap was a dead short. Replaced w/mylars has been fine since.
GL
Thanks. That one was ruined - but I saved the dog.
You are right about the caps. Get the Solens from ARS.
Went ahead and got the Solens from ARS and replaced the electrolytic. Also got the new tube. Turned the radio on this evening and it plays quite well!!! Hope to put both chassis back in the cabinet tomorrow.
Speaking of these Microsynchronous Victors, I saw an article about one in an old copy of Antique Radio Classified, but I think it was an RE-45. In any event whoever wrote the article was really proud of their "all original find", it had a decent original finish, still had it's microphone for recording. However what the article failed to mention is that the set was 10-12'' shorter then it should have been, the legs had been cut off.
What made my jaw drop was where the author spoke of powering up the set slowly in order to reform the electrolytic filter caps. As I and others have mentioned before these sets never came with electrolytic filter caps, only paper, just like an early Phlico or an RCA Radiola AC set. Powering it up slowly is probably not a bad idea, just so you have a chance to kill the power if you smell smoke, but the paper filter caps are either good, or bad, or about to fail, regardless.
Regards
Arran
The Victor R-32 family of radios from 1929 are great performers, and in my opinion, wonderful collectible sets. I'm fortunate to have one of each of the four models from that family (R-32, R-52, RE-45, and RE-75). The sets were ahead of their time with the Micro-synchronous tuning. Also, while other manufacturers were offering sets with small dials, these Victors featured a large "slide rule" type dial which would become very popular later on with the buying public. 1929 was the year RCA acquired Victor Talking Machine Company, and these radios were among the last products to be sold with the Victor name. The design and engineering of these sets was strictly by Victor.
The RE-45 and RE-75 were radio and phono combinations, but were not disc cutters. The R-32 and R-52 are straight radio sets.
Great info here on using paper or mylar caps as filters, and not electrolytics. Good luck on your restoration!
Gilbert
No;
An RE-45 was not a record cutter in the original sense, but they did come with a microphone, and a weight for the tone arm, to enable cutting, what I would assume, with pre grooved blanks. It may have worked it was probably best suited for dictation, and not music. The microsynchronous tuner was an interesting idea mechanically, but I would not call it state of the art since it was still a TRF employing #26 triodes, rather then screen grid tubes like #24s. It's rather odd that they kept the electrical design past the 1929-30 model year, the Radiola 44 used screen grid tubes, other Radiolas were superhets in that year, (most were made by G.E.) maybe Victor had a large stock of #26s RCA wanted to use up?
It's interesting that you should bring up these being the last products brought out under the Victor name. In the U.S that may have been true, but in Canada they were marketing radios and radio phonographs under the Victor name only up until the 1934-35 model year. I would guess that this was because of the dealer network and sales agreements they had in Canada, much like how they had retrimmed Mercury cars sold as Monarchs at Ford dealers, and retrimmed Fords sold as Meteors at Mercury dealers.
Regards
Arran
Arran,
Not to be argumentative, but I have an RE-45 and it does not have a microphone, nor a jack to plug in the microphone, and no weights to add to the tone arm. I also have an RE-75, the next model up and it does not have any jacks or connections for a microphone either. Also, neither set has any additional circuitry for a recording amplifier. A look at the schematic for these models in Rider's shows no recording facilities. Only playback of records. Might it be another model you are thinking about? I see you are in Canada. Perhaps you are thinking of a model that was sold only in Canada and not the U.S.
With reference to the Micro-Synchronous Tuning, I have always thought it was an effective way to allow the set to track properly and have good sensitivity and selectivity.
Gilbert
Have you guys seen this? I don't know who created it, but, good job:
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Very cool Phlogiston! I've never seen that. Thanks for sharing!
Gilbert