The PHILCO Phorum

About a year ago I picked up a Philco 29CSX at the PSARA swap meet.









Not too bad right? Wait a second... what the H**l?



No way is that front panel original. 
And neither is that grille cloth. Or those knobs. Ugh.

This project is going to primarily be about recreating that front panel.

Fortunately for this poor 29CSX this Phorum exists!

I reached out to the SteveG - the other owner of a 29CSX that I knew of (check out his thread with photos of his 29CSX here).

Steve was extremely generous with his time and kindly traced the outline of his front panel and mailed it to me:



Hats off to you SteveG! 

So what's my plan here?

I scanned in the trace, cleaned it up in Photoshop and Illustrator, and created the attached document.

[attachment=20116]

I printed out the design on 'tabloid' (11" x 17" paper) and mounted it on cardboard.







Being someone who is (much) better with computers than woodworking my initial thought was to use a laser-cutting service like Ponoko to make a perfect replica of a printed design. Unfortunately laser cutting isn't available for a material as thick as the original. Steve noted his panel is 3/8" thick.

For comparison purposes - and because the top panel also needs to be refinished I removed it and measured it to be close to (but slightly under) 3/8" as well.





Fortunately it so happens that a friend at work enjoys building finely crafted computer keyboards out of wood. In fact, he has his own computer controlled router setup (not the computer kind of router but the wood working kind). Those are able to handle much thicker material - and my friend generously offered to help.

All I needed next was the material to cut. Initially (before I had taken the cabinet apart) I thought I was looking for was 3/8" thick walnut plywood. This is an unusual thickness so it took some Internet searching I found it at Owyn's Lumber. I placed an order - but when I finally received it it came with a very nice letter from the owner:



Talk about customer service! They sent me two pieces - 1/4" thick walnut plywood - but also 3/8" cherry plywood.





In fact, after looking more closely at the top panel (should've taken that off before ordering!) I don't actually think it's walnut at all. It's just using opaque toner to blend with the other parts of the set. The cherry should work just fine and be the right thickness. 

Lookin good!

Mmmmmm. . . . LOVE the chairsides!

Might be next on my list.  Finally got a tombstone.

...and you have some walnut veneer for future projects! Great project Nathan!

Time for an update! It's taken a while but the 29CSX is now all back together:



Here's how we got there:

My friend took my scan and created a nice clean representation for feeding into the computer controlled router. To make sure we had the shape just right he cut a bit of scrap to try on the radio.



We iterated a few times and finally we were happy with the fit. At that point he cut it for real:



Factory fresh!

I finished it the by applying several coats of sanding sealer, sand, clear coat, 1x Extra Dark Walnut tone finish toner, 2x Extra Dark Walnut Ultra Classic. Finally many coats of clear lacquer, application of paint to the inside edges, then sanding again before the final clear coats.



I stripped and refinished the top panel in the same way except it also required adding a Philco decal.



After a few weeks I rubbed out the finish and installed the grille cloth (Richmond Designs chevron cloth in this case).

Installing the top panel grille cloth was a bit tricky since it apparently consists of two pieces of backer cardboard with chevron cloth that needs to look like a continuous piece. To make that easier I create this template that I printed glued to the cardboard:

[attachment=20729]

I glued on the grille cloth to the back side of the template and then cut it out.

Side note: I need to fill in that extra top middle hole that wasn't original to the set (not sure why it was added or when - but I mistakenly included it in my template when drilling holes for the panel).

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At this point the 29CSX is happily sitting in the house and playing. One more final thing I need to do is to change out the stainless steel screws for brass oval top screws with finishing washers.

Thanks again to SteveG for providing a photo of the original mounting hardware (as well as the trace of the panel)!

Looking good!!

Beautiful set!!!!

Beautiful job Nathan.

Nathan,
Beautiful set!! Makes me rethink about selling mine. I may have to restore it after all! Glad to be of help with that beauty!
Steve