The PHILCO Phorum

looking forward to Kutztown so I can grab some original knobs as well as some grill cloth for this old girl

I'm VERY pleased with this one (especially the $30 price) in both looks and performance....

I have it hooked to a 100' out door di-pole and it seems to do GREAT on both BCB and SW

however I'm not looking forward to doing the caps on the modular chassis but she's working fine and sounds sweet right now









the finish on the radio is basically "cleaned" up original ........

a bit of hot soapy water to get the the grime off (drying IMMEDIATELY of course) followed by a wiping of Howards restore-a-finish and a coat of howards "feed-n-wax" and a hand-buffing

I'm a big fan of the "taken care of original" look as opposed to the 110% "brand-new looking" restoration.......

but that's just me...everybody has their own tastes

the lamp with shade was a $3.00 goodwill find and the shade is painted glass

my wife found a HUGE black leather skirt (also at goodwill) and she is making me a little "runner" to put my "bar" on

Glad to hear you are a fan of "survivors" too. That classy console looks great just the way it is.

Is there a nickname for that globe/airwave dial? It's the same as my 37-660. For proportion, it fits
better on your console though. Or I maybe am just conditioned to the smaller earlier escutcheons.

Yes, it looks very nice.

I should add that, the 37-650 console escutcheon is larger than the escutcheon on the 37-650B tombstone.

I'm confused Ron. I just measured my escutcheons and the 37-620 console has a 4 3/8" Dia. while the 37-660B tombstone is 3-4 eighths wider.
Don't the 650B and 660B tombstones share the same escutcheon? I had assumed there were only two different diameters made, but if the 650
console's is still larger, there must be at least three sizes. Is that correct? Or even more?

The 37-650B and 37-660B tombstone escutcheons have the same outer diameter, but the dial window of the 37-650B is smaller than the 37-660B dial window.

The 37-650X console escutcheon is definitely larger than the 37-650B escutcheon. I have a 37-650X escutcheon out in the garage; if I don't forget, I'll try to measure it tomorrow.

I'm measuring 5-3/8 on the extreme outside edge of this one

4-1/8 across the glass

thanks for the compliments guys.....I cant wait to see how it looks with proper knobs and new grill cloth

My 38-2650 has the large diameter escutchion, it is the same diameter as the one on my 37-670. My 38-5 and 38-665 have larger cabinets than the 38-2650, but they both have a smaller diameter escutchion.

37-620 console ... 4 3/8" O.D.

37-660B tomb.... 4 3/4" (maybe 7/8)

Ith a mythtery.

Beautiful set Scott.
The treatment you gave the original finish looks perfect from here. Now all you need to do is take care of that cloth and the caps.

gary rabbitt Wrote:Beautiful set Scott.
The treatment you gave the original finish looks perfect from here. Now all you need to do is take care of that cloth and the caps.

thank you......I was pretty pleased with it......

I did the power supply caps before I fired it up but hadn't touched any of the other ones....as you guys probably know they look to be a pain in the posterior......

I'm watching pepperonis thread to see how he makes out with his........

does anybody have a source for the gold "philco" decals like on the front above the escutchion??

this one has a nick out of the "C" as well as missing the lower leg from the "L"

OK, now, I've been going nutzycuckoo over the bezel sizes for just the 37-650. Some of you know that I have all three versions of the 37-650, and I've been saying all along that the bezel sizes are the same on all of the 37-650 jobs. Ron has some different dimensions on his 37-650B, so I finally went downstairs to the three sets, and measured the bezel diameters. Here's wot I came up with:

37-650X: 5 1/4" OD; 4 1/8" ID.

37-650XP: 5 1/4" OD; 4 1/8" ID.

37-650B: 51/4" OD 4 1/8" ID.

I also measured the diameters on a couple of other similar sets.

38-2670B: 5 1/4" OD 4 1/8" ID.

37-630 (640?) MX: 5" OD 4 1/8" ID. (which you can see by just looking)

So now, Ron and I have different signals on the sizes of the bezels on our 37-650B sets. When I first got the set, the bezel was grungy, so I put a new one on it. Had the new one been the wrong size, it never would have fit the set. Now, my 37-650B is the rounded top cabinet design, which looks like the 37-660 shown in another post here. Was that the only version of the 37-650B?

Ron, what does yours look like?

I just wonder if they actually had several different dial bezel sizes for early models, than realized the folly of their ways, and standardized the bezel size?????

Now, it looks like we will have to look at serial numbers, and see if there's a big difference between mine and Ron's.

I didn't measure the ones on the 37-630 or the 38 small sets, 'cause they are glaringly different.

Anythoo, Ronaldo (and everybody else), whaddya make of all this? Looks to me like there were three bezel sizes for those sets.

Hello, Doug: I believe that you are correct about the 3 sizes of bezel rings/dials on the 37 and 38 model Philcos. However, there are several different inserts that have different size "windows" for the dial. A 5 band radio would have a larger window than a 2 band radio would.
When you are looking for a dial assembly for these 37 and 38 models, it is important to know both measurements. I learned the hard way that a picture on a web site can be decieving.
FYI this is also true with the 36 model radios, there are 3 different size escutchion assemblies found on these models.

The grill cloth is readily available as a reproduction from several sources, the knobs can be found either as reproductions or as originals, they were in common use from about 1936-1940 on multiple models in either black or brown Bakelite.
Regards
Arran

Well, OK. Just notice that the bezel on the 38-2670 is the same size as the 37-650's that I have. The 38-2670 IS A 5 BAND SET.

One thing that I wonder about now, is hat the INNER bezels differ quite a bit. I was measuring the OUTER bezels. It would be true that the opening for the dial scale had to be bigger than on the 3 or 4 ban models.

Arran Wrote:The grill cloth is readily available as a reproduction from several sources, the knobs can be found either as reproductions or as originals, they were in common use from about 1936-1940 on multiple models in either black or brown Bakelite.
Regards
Arran

i know....but Kutztown is only a couple days away and since I'm gong anyhow......