RCA 10T - Printable Version

RCA 10T - Printable Version

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RE: RCA 10T - Phlogiston - 05-21-2018

As I mentioned , the 1932 run of metal tubes from RCA included a 5W4. They must have had a reason, but it could have been as simple as having a rectifier included in the set.

The 5T4 is also a metal tube (shielded). This could have been to make it more rugged for military use.

RE: RCA 10T - Arran - 05-22-2018

I have noticed that RCA (actually G.E) developed a whole range of metal tubes, including power tubes, which they heavily promoted for a few years, then either put them on the back burner or discontinued them outright in favor of glass types. I can recall reading in the OTB that they were even contemplating how to make a metal magic eye tube, well metal-glass obviously, but it never got beyond the prototype stage, sort of similar in construction to one of those awful M-G style picture tubes that were popular in the early 1950s . From what I can recall the metal power tubes were not liked because the heat dissipation was not that wonderful, but it may have been that with rectifiers in particular many preferred glass because you could see what was going on inside, like if a filter cap is shorted you can spot that almost instantly inside something like a type #80. I have noticed that metal power output tubes seem to be fairly common, but that was probably because they marketed as being mil spec as Russ suggested, whenever you run into a metal 6V6 or 6L6 they often have a JAN number on them as well.
I don't think that I have seen a glass version of a either a 5Z4 or a 5T4, and have not seen either used in a radio built after 1938, a 5Z4 is pretty much interchangeable with a 5Y3G or GT, only it has a cathode tied to one of the heater pins, so they were pretty much redundant after a short time. I too have seen the shield used over a type #83, and I assumed that suppressing RF hash was the purpose behind it, but I did run into a series of pre war Grimes-Phonola/Electrohome built sets that had a tubes shield over the power output tube, I have no idea why as it was only a 6V6G or 6F6G under it, the sets were not high end, and the chassis were large, and inside spacious console cabinets. Here is an example:

http://pacifictv.ca/schematics/phonolaz40a62xe1.pdf

An odder feature is that it seems to employ both a standard tuning condenser but also uses permeable (slug) tuning, and there is no equivalent to Doug Houston when it comes to Grimes-Phonola/Electrohome radios to ask about this that I am aware of. I think it's for band spread tuning on shortwave, but why bother when it doesn't even have an extra tuned RF amplifier stage?
Regards
Arran

RE: RCA 10T - radiohenry - 05-22-2018

I picked up a 10T last year and due to back issues have done almost nothing with it. Last night I pulled the chassis and it appears to have never been worked on. Tubes had been changed or removed ,stuff like that but no under chassis work was done. The NEARC club meet is in two weeks and I need to make room but after seeing that it may staying for a while. But heavy ,heavy heavy.

Henry

RE: RCA 10T - radiohenry - 05-23-2018

Thanks for the tip about the restoration article . Between this thread and that one you all have made me maybe change my mind about
keeping my 10T. Also having found the underneath not being worked on helped too. All in all I have time since the show is 6/02.
Henry

RE: RCA 10T - Electrothaumaturgist - 05-23-2018

How is the condition of your cabinet, Radiohenry? Mine has some issues with the top corner "ears" , which oddly, are at a minimum and hardly noticeable now. Must be a different humidity than where it was stored, and the wood swelled up somewhat making the cracks hardly noticeable. Still needs a good restore though, but I'm not touching the cabinet, myself. I wonder what the production run numbers on this model are? Still haven't seen those stats, yet

RE: RCA 10T - Ron Ramirez - 05-23-2018

Henry

It's a good thing that it's a long way from here to MA, else I would be offering to trade a nice Philco 37-670B for your 10T... Icon_smile

RE: RCA 10T - radiohenry - 05-24-2018

Electrothaumaturgist,
The cabinet is not too bad. On the top side edge there is some veneer wear/loss and a piece of veneer missing on the rounded side and of course the normal scratches on the top etc. I think some of these larger heavy cabinets seemed to get more abuse just sitting. The top looks like something was sitting on it causing lighter and darker areas. For the most part I think a clean up and something like Howard's might make it more presentable.
The dial cover plastic was missing along with the eye tube and holder assembly. I have replacements for both.My biggest concern is cleaning the dial.There is something white on one area.
I will try to add a pic or two later.
When this radio became available I was still grieving the loss of my 9T that I had sold at a past show. The price was right so after a road trip it was home with me..
Ron,
It's funny about no matter where you live the radios you like always seem so far away.I seem to a lot of appealing radios out your way. You know the grass is always greener elsewhere.
Henry

RE: RCA 10T - Electrothaumaturgist - 05-24-2018

I'm not positive, and I would urge anyone to investigate it further, but I think I read in the other forum that the dials were made of the same type material as the Philco dials of that era, and can be safely cleaned with mineral spirits. That's what I used on the dialface of my 38-1, and to my astonishment, it didn't affect ANY of the colored lettering! I would make sure first that's the case- As always-Use no water!
And yes. The grass is always greener on "The other side of the septic tank"

RE: RCA 10T - NostalgiaRadioTime - 05-24-2018

I can vouch from my 10K (the console version of the 10T) that the dial uses water soluble ink. Meaning DO NOT touch it with anything liquid or the numbers WILL come off! I found that out on mine using a damp cloth with water and luckily it was only one number lost that I could carefully mark back on with a fine tip point sharpie.

Use a soft, dry cloth to clean the dial face. Only!

If the dials are too far gone or badly stained, Radio Daze has reproductions available:

http://www.radiodaze.com/general-electric-e98-rca-9k-9k2-9k3-9k10-9t-9u-9u2-10k-10k1-10k11-10t-10t11-13k-15k-dial-set-item-ds-a160/

RE: RCA 10T - Electrothaumaturgist - 05-24-2018

Wow! Thanks greg! For some reason, I thought that there were no reproduction dials for this one. Seems like an excellent price, if the quality is there.

RE: RCA 10T - NostalgiaRadioTime - 05-24-2018

They are very nice quality. Never got a bad one from Radio Daze.

RE: RCA 10T - Arran - 05-25-2018

That is curious that these apparently have wash away dials as the 1933-34 and 1934-35 model RCAs do not. In any event you could try cleaning it with mineral spirits like one uses with the 1936-38 Philco dials. I'm not surprised at all that Radiodaze makes a reproduction, RCA used those sorts of dials on a lot of their mid to upper priced models, and if they were like Philco the band coverage was probably the same over several of them.
Regards
Arran

RE: RCA 10T - radiohenry - 05-27-2018

Here are a couple cabinet pics of mine. Some day I will learn to take better pics . I'm sure they would look better if I took them outside.
As far as cleaning the dial with mineral spirits I tried recently on an RCA T4-8 and I was not happy with the results as it seemed to leave an almost glossy film that was difficult to remove. So I am out to lunch on that for now.
Henry

RE: RCA 10T - Electrothaumaturgist - 05-27-2018

HHMMM... Our cabinets seem to be in roughly about the same shape, with yours being a bit better, along with your cloth being really nice, and the two laminate "ears" on the top edges of mine are cracked. I can see on yours that the same type of edge cracks are in the same position as mine, though not as pronounced, and not cracked on the top spots like mine. Almost all other pics of 10T's I've seen on the net have those same "cracks" or separation in the exact same places on both sides (at least on the edges). They must have used 3 pieces for each of the "ears", from my observations...

RE: RCA 10T - Electrothaumaturgist - 09-08-2020

Well, after the 10T sat here dormant for the past two years, I finally got a message from ebay that there was one up for sale, and I wanted to get a feel for what they were going for. I had been researching off and on during that period of time all info I could gather about this model. Seems with all that, there was about a dozen or so models that were owned or talked about, stretching back to about 1995 on the net. Of course I realize that there must be far more than a dozen, but if you follow the ones presented, you find that they are "repeats", being exchanged amongst collectors.
The ebay one came up on my notifications about 2 months ago for $700 and was there about 4 days with no one seeming to bite. I thought that odd.
I took a chance and joined the barking dog forum to get an opinion on the subject (as my phone and computer had been somehow corrupted awhile back and it was near impossible to log in here. I don't know why, but I had a dickens of a time unsuccessfully signing in). Wasn't but a day or so after that I think, and it was removed without any further information. One of the guys over there said he got a notification also and it was first listed at $400, sans knobs, and was listed again at $700 with knobs. Soon as I posted that, it was gone like the wind with several days left on the clock.
So, of course, it piqued my interest and made me take a closer look at mine.
After some discussion, it didn't seem to generate much interest there, and I was told it *MIGHT* bring about 150
bucks or so, tops. (Seems they were all catagorizing the t10-1 into their equations. TOTALLY different animal made in the multiple THOUSANDS!!! DURR...). Seeing that it wasn't worth much more than a common cheapo set of same vintage, I figured I had absolutely nothing to lose by pulling the chassis and checking it out. So I did.
Regard:
(Pictures to come):