The PHILCO Phorum

I had some time this morning, so I finally got around to cleaning the grill cloth on the 39-45. I found something interesting: the cloth was not originally gold. It was green with diamond-shaped gold accents.

Here is the unfaded edge with the faded part visible:



Here is the entire piece on the backer board before cleaning:



I really like the original colors, but I'm not sure I want to shell out the dough for a reproduction piece this large, if it's even available..

I carefully hand-washed it in lukewarm water with a bit of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda, which my wife claims is very gentle. The water turned a nasty shade of brown very quickly. The first thought in my head was about all those Camel Cigarette commercials I hear on episodes of Richard Diamond, Private Detective. I don't miss those hazy, smoke-filled rooms from bygone years at all.

It's stretched out on a towel, air drying right now. Here's hoping for minimal shrinkage.

Another problem with "shrinkage" is, once remounted, the next day the humidity is high, it will un-shrink.

The humidity is always high in Floriduh.

If you can tell me who is responsible for all that humidity down there, I shall drive down there and beat them up for you.

Who says altruism is dead???

Thanks for the offer, TA.

I just re-mounted the cloth on the backer board.

I'm not sure cleaning it gained me much in the way of cosmetic appearances, since it has not faded evenly and there are a few very thin spots that formed over the years.

I may be on the lookout for a replacement cloth. But so far, I've found no accurate reproductions. Green and gold diamond speaker cloth does not exist as far as I can tell, but I think it would do wonders for the looks of this console.

Eric, What did you end up doing with the speak cloth?

Scott- For now, I'm putting it back on, minus 74 years worth of dust and tobacco smoke. I'll try to get everything back together and take some pics when I get home from work tonight.

Well, here it is. I don't think cleaning added much to it, since the thin and discolored spots are still there.



I really wish there was reproduction cloth for this. The sage green and gold would really pop. But after looking through the Philco photo gallery, it looks like this was only used on the 1939-1940 models. That's probably a little too narrow a field for someone to make a sell-able run of repro cloth.

That's going to bother me every time I look at it now.

I used this stuff that I found in the years before reproduction grill cloth. At least it has a similar pattern. They probably don't make it anymore either.

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The diamond pattern was available during the Radio Grille Cloth Headquarters days, but since they're out of business now, that pattern is no longer available.

John's diamond cloth was gold with no green, because that's how the original cloth looks after fading/UV exposure, as you know.

Huh. That's odd... I would've sworn the un-faded cloth on my 40-190 was two-tone brown in the same pattern!

That was speaker grill cloth that I got from Lafayette Electronics about 30 years ago, when I got that radio.

The cloth used on Eric's radio is exactly like the cloth that was used on my 40-201. I found a similar diamond pattern at one supplier, but it is more of a beige color and not like the original. I might use it, but will do some more looking first.

The cloth in my radio is too far gone to do anything with. Between rodent odor and rotting threads etc. it is in tatters.

Joe