[bastardbus]

I recently was gifted a 40-170CS, I have the chassis rebuilt and working great.  The cabinet is solid but needs refinished.  The one issue I have with it though is some cracking on one of the rounded corners of the cabinet.  Much like the waterfall on the front of a console radio, the wood panel gets thinner to make the curve and is under stress.  It was stored under a desk in a shop for years and I am guess someone might have bumped that one corner a couple times.

The cracks seem only to penetrate the top one or two layers of the plywood.  I am trying to figure out the best way to repair the cracks and try and get the wood back into shape.  Any ideas are appreciated!  

                   

[OldRestorer]

Hey!
Unfortunately there is not much you can do short of re-veneering it.
You could inject watered down glue in there and clamp to stop the cracking but then you will have to fill it and try to match it.. That should be done even if you are veneering it.
Maybe someone else will have other options.. BOB!
I want a gift like that...

[klondike98]

Kirk...I was hoping you would chime in on this....I have never dealt with a cracked veneer on the curve like that, (unless there is another Bob you are thinking of).

[bastardbus]

I have a couple ideas what to do but ideas and testing-result is a different story. I hate to test ideas on a neat radio like this so any experience please chime in.

-strap clamp idea. Basically a ratcheting tie down. Seen these used to hole pictures frames together to glue. Glue in the crack that perhaps a non stick barrier like wax paper and then strap it down. This should close the crack and bring the that bowed crack back into place.

-12" clamps...I have some HUGE 12" deep clamps I could use. a couple of these are compound and the curve has lost it's shape. I am wondering if on those I would need a backer like a wooden curved buck piece that I could clamp from behind and perhaps clamp a flexible piece of plastic or plywood across the front to bring that broken piece into position.

-the guitar tool fix....we use this type of clamp when butt welding panels into cars at the shop...very cool method but kina expensive...none the less check the stuff out...great for cabinet repair. https://youtu.be/Nbn6rcSzAP8 There is a great idea of using a heat gun and thing acrylic to create a curved cull or buck to hold the cracked piece in proper position...

My plan for this radio was fix the cracks, touch them up and refinish the thing. I was not overly concerned with some scars from the cracks being present...but....since that I am getting the vibe this is kinda a hard to find radio and one perhaps worth reentering those sections. Due to the design it could be done fairly easily but it is a bunch more work.

Is this THAT special of a radio or should I not worry about fixing the cracks and leaving them as is. Honestly, I have repaired similar before and was able to hide the repair pretty darn good.

Thanks
T

BTW who is Bob..my guess someone with expertise in fixing these type issues...?

[Nathan Slingerland]

http://www.philcoradio.com/gallery/1940b.htm#c

Looks to be a somewhat rare one: 3,500 made

[Arran]

Gluing up that sort of crack never holds over the long term, because wood tends to expand and contract with changes in humidity it will only crack again. I say this from experience, and concur with what Kirk said, the only way to permanently repair it is to replace the damaged veneer. However this is not all bad news, in looking at the pictures of your cabinet I believe that you could repair it by cutting out a strip of veneer as wide as the damaged area, parallel to the grain of the wood, and replace only the damaged sections. The main issue will be finding French walnut veneer with a similar grain and colour to the original veneer next to it, I believe it was quarter sawn. In some cases they also book matched the veneer on one side of the cabinet to the other, I don't know if they would have bothered on this cabinet but on the higher end ones they would have. One good thing about the design of this cabinet is that you would not have to take it apart to repair it, the ends of the veneer meet up with a straight and exposed edge rather then being hidden behind a piece of moulding or terminating inside a dado joint.
Regards
Arran

[bastardbus]

I glued up the base of the radio cabinet yesterday and fabbed-installed new glue blocks. Now the cabinet is nice and secure. I bought and used a strap clamp for fixing the cracks and used it to secure the bottom when gluing and it worked GREAT.

Closer look at the cracks and a couple are all the way through the wood substrate not just the veneer. So regardless of re-veneering those cracks have to be repaired-glued before refinished OR new veneer is placed over the top. I have glued similar cracks on the waterfall of a B.F. Goodrich Mantola wood table top and it has help up great the past couple years. On that Mantola I built a wooden mold to fit inside the curve and clamped-glued the crack up, worked great but was far easier to access then the cracks on this radio. That is going to be the issue.

I think I am going to try molding some acrylic plexiglass to the correct curve of the corner and use it as a cull or form when reglue-clamping the crack down. Seen this done guitars with great results (see the link I posted previously).

T

[bastardbus]

If anyone is interested here is some updates.

I tried the plexiglass trick used on guitars.  It was a failure for this type or crack.  I could see it 'possibly' working on another type crack but this crack no go.  Issues were the plexi was difficult to heat evenly enough with a gun to flex and mold to the piece with precision.  Once I got it REALLY close I found the next problem is the plexi was too stiff.  For this crack on the curve you need something to compress it back into position.  That wasn't possible with the plexi.

What I found seemed to work (so far it isn't dry yet) is the strap clamps.  I removed all finish from around the crack and dampened the area so it would flex and draw the glue in better.  Then brushed some 50/50 glue and water mix into the crack.  Compressed it and pushed it around.  The glue REALLY got in there good even where the crack was not opened but visible.  

I then used a sheet of wax paper and a small piece of 1/8 plywood dampened so it would flex and follow the contour of the cabinet easily over top of the crack.  Then two strap clamps (basically ratchet tie downs) around the cabinet and over the plywood.  I cranked em down good and I it seemed to compress that crack and damage back into a perfect curve.  This strap clamp worked amazingly well for the bottom frame so thought try it here as well.  Will update how it looks tomorrow after it dries.

[bastardbus]

Here is the cracks repaired and cabinet refinished.  It turned out well and saved having to re-veneer the entire cabinet.  If I point it out you can still see the 'scar' of the original crack but it is fixed-solid and practically invisible.  Very happy with the out come.

[OldRestorer]

Of course we are interested!!
Very cool idea... These curve cracks are a true PITB.. I had then on a Philco something and it was many years ago. I tried fixing it but did not do a good job...
I dont see any finished pics though...

[Ed Locker]

Yes, no pics!
We want pics!

[Ron Ramirez]

As some people like to say...Pics or it didn't happen!

[Phlogiston]

I glued up the base of the radio cabinet yesterday and fabbed-installed new glue blocks.  Now the cabinet is nice and secure. I bought and used a strap clamp for fixing the cracks and used it to secure the bottom when gluing and it worked GREAT.

Closer look at the cracks and a couple are all the way through the wood substrate not just the veneer.  So regardless of re-veneering those cracks have to be repaired-glued before refinished OR new veneer is placed over the top.  I have glued similar cracks on the waterfall of a B.F. Goodrich Mantola wood table top and it has help up great the past couple years.  On that Mantola I built a wooden mold to fit inside the curve and clamped-glued the crack up, worked great but was far easier to access then the cracks on this radio.  That is going to be the issue.

I think I am going to try molding some acrylic plexiglass to the correct curve of the corner and use it as a cull or form when reglue-clamping the crack down.  Seen this done guitars with great results (see the link I posted previously).

T

+1 or however many times I have tried this.

The problem is structural. Lack of support in the bend. A repair will have to address this problem and all of the cracked layers will need to be replaced. OR one day the crack will be back. Depending on the  environment, the glue and clamp repairs usually last a year or two before the crock becomes visible again. Cracks look much worse on a refinished cabinet.

[Arran]

My experience with fixing veneer cracked this way was pretty much as Russ stated, it looked decent for a year or more and then cracked again. Fortunately this was on on the bottom towards the back on a Canadian RCA-Victor model A-20 from 1939-40. I made the repair when I was 16 back in high school, which was before the internet so there wasn't really wasn't anyone with cabinet/furniture restoration experience to ask about whether it was the right way to repair it.
 One day I may go back and re-restore that cabinet, but now I have three of them and the cabinets on the more recent ones either don't have this problem or it is limited to the final 3/4'' of the curve near the rear of the cabinet. The A-20 cabinets are basically made out of laminated veneer with some solid sections such as the top and the bottom, so there isn't a lot of structure in the curved areas on the bottom. On the sister model, the RCA-Victor A-23 the cabinets have blocks in these areas for re-enforcement so it isn't often that they will suffer damage on the bottom curve on the sides, the A-20s do not because the spacing between the chassis and the inside of the cabinet doesn't really leave much room for it. What I may tray is gluing some extra layers of veneer on the inside of the curves to stiffen them up. 
Regards
Arran