I just got my AK-44 back last night and my friend was in the mood for a little trading. That was great because I had a few radios, two of them projects I wanted to unload. Little did I know I would be coming home with five more Atwater-Kent radios when the deal was done! Bad news, none of them have tubes and one radio (a model 36) might be toast. But now I have found 6 Atwater-Kents in the past two weeks! Now I have one type 37, two type 42s (one for parts, two 40's (one for parts), a 36 that is really bad inside, and a complete and working 44. Here's a picture of last night's haul. Now I need to find some tubes, a few more type E speakers, and a 'little stove'.
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That will keep you busy for a while! The worst part of these are the power supply's, with everything encased in tar. I spent a Saturday afternoon smoking out the neighbors with a heat gun, melting 85 year old tar out of the power supply of one of my model 40's a few weeks back. Had to do it, though, as the power supply tested ok as is, but when I slowly starting bringing up the set on a variac, smoke started rolling out of the transformer section. Not a good sign! Then, naturally, as soon as you start heating up the tar to get it to soften or melt, it also melts the solder joints, so the wires fall off of the transformer, choke assembly, and cap section. Here's what's inside:
transformer:
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choke assembly:
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capacitors:
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One of these already has the tar melted out and what a mess! That's the issue with most of these sets from that era. These will definitely be winter time projects!
Wow... I guess I must be really lucky. I've yet to have an A-K with a bad power supply. I've several 55's, a couple 60's, a 40 and a 36, I believe it is. I really like these sets for their pure ease of service.
One question though: Can anyone give me a good way to get the can caps open? I can't even begin to get the solder on the bottom to melt, but I would dearly love to be able to restuff them rather than add solder lugs to hold the new caps.
^^^^^Say, now... Look at that pretty chassis!!!
Two issues: One, I don't have that much money right now and, two, a bit too far away for me to go pick up. With all the metal table sets I have run into around my town over the years, one has to wonder what happened to all the little stove consoles?
Maybe some people really did convert them into wood stoves!
What happened to all of them?
WWII and scrap metal collection drives would be my guess.
Those A-K's are really nice, I'd love to see a working one someday.
Although I have not melted out one of those power supplies I would have to say the proceedure for all would be about the same . If you are melting solder you are using way too much heat. I found heat guns are too difficult to control heat wise.
Being married for 40 years I know enough to stay away from the oven. I had good success melting out a Philco 20 filter block using an old slow cooker and for something larger would suggest a hot plate/warming tray or an old electric griddle. Both can be found at yard sales cheaply enough.
Interestingly I found that the filter block had insulation all around so once the tar softened ,by pulling on the wires I was able to remove everything and the can itself was 98% clean.
Good luck,
Henry