There are many tutorials on the cabinet restoration, but not much said about inside finish.Great looking cabinet and the shining chassis makes unfinished chassis compartment look even worse than before the cabinet restoration. So..any info what they used or what to use? To me, it looks like some sort of shellac, but not 100% sure.
For me,
I like a nice clean inside. I also like it to be original looking so not shellac or shiny finish. I just brush it out, give it a good cleaning or even a #0000 wool rubbing and sometimes stain it. Some cabinets are more unfinished than others with rough cut wood and imperfections so I feel that they will catch and hold more dust and dirt. Those cabinets I will give a sanding.
In the end, it is your cabinet and if you want it looking beautious inside then go for it. It will definitely make it cleaner and easier to keep clean.
Kirk
Generally I first vacuum it out to get as much of the dust balls, spider webs and debris I can, then I'll wipe it out with a moist rag (making sure to cover any labels with cardboard so they don't get damaged in the process). Then unless there is something radically wrong on the inside, I leave it as is.
Of course I clean and vacuum, however there are some spots missing the original rough coating or just peeling off. Also,when the small sticker is missing (in my case some instruction or rather notice about transportation fasteners, and it is pretty much perished) there is a bold clean wood spot, which needs to be coated. BTW, newly fabricated stickers, to my opinion, look completely out of place.
I wipe it out with a damp rag then use GOJO with rag. Works well.
Flat black paint if severe.
Tim
Philco did not apply any special attention to the inside of the cabinet. Clean, dirt free is good....
Other brands applied different kinds of interior finishes. RCA was black until around 1935-36, when they went to silver.
Zenith used an inky-dark blue to the interiors. Not sure when they started this.
Some cabinets have a dark brown colored sealer or paint applied to the inside, almost always flat. In others it looks like it's brown but transparent, so it may be a shellac or animal hide coating they used.
Regards
Arran
@Arran
That is exactly what I have.There are some bald spots and on the top of that those little triangular wooden bars (glued) for reinforcement, few on each side, some of them are missing and I had to fabricate the new ones. Think to try very dark wooden stain, might be able to match the color.
I did kind of what was mentioned above on my 41-280
Vac, wipe and at first a small sample area of GoJo. In the end a good slop of GoJo and lots of wiping out with paper towels. It is a bit rough so tore up the towels some
It did not hurt the decals and other tags glued inside. The GoJo feeds the wood and looks a lot better.
I unscrewed the speaker mounting frame and pulled out the grill backing so I would not get the cloth gooped up and could get to the back of the grill bars. I also did the GoJo treatment to the rear exposed face and edges of the speaker mounting frame.
My first cabinet redo so not proceeding too fast. Reading a lot before I venture forth.
Plan on looking over a bunch of the redone ones at Dayton this year. Had not paid much attention to them before.