[Phlogiston]

AK 57 rebuild now on my Blog.

http://www.russoldradios.com/blog


   

P.S. I just noticed that this cabinet is a great comparison of the AK "dark" and "light" brown colors since it has both of them on it.

[Radioroslyn]

Heavy little bugger ain't it!!!!

[morzh]

I understand today's value of this radio as it is a collectable AK, but I fail to understand the appeal back in the days when it was a then consumer product and in fact a piece of furniture. The stove was the first thing that came to mind when I first saw it.

[Phlogiston]

I understand today's value of this radio as it is a collectable AK, but I fail to understand the appeal back in the days when it was a then consumer product and in fact a piece of furniture. The stove was the first thing that came to mind when I first saw it.

Well yes. I do like it. It is heavy, but nothing like the Scott SLR, also from the lot. And I probably would not have bought one but I was given 2 and felt obligated to make one work. Now I am happy that I did. A post on FB says that it is harder to find than the other "little stove" models.

[Arran]

I understand today's value of this radio as it is a collectable AK, but I fail to understand the appeal back in the days when it was a then consumer product and in fact a piece of furniture. The stove was the first thing that came to mind when I first saw it.

Mike;
  From what I understand Atwater Kent did not have it's own cabinet shop, so it had to outsource to outfits like Pooley or Red Lion for most of the wooden cabinets it used. However A.K, since it was originally in the auto parts business, was well equipped with metal stamping and sheet metal equipment, so the logical thing for them to do was to produce steel cabinets in house for certain models, like the ubiquitous model 40s. It would seem that in the mid to late 1920s the way to produce a budget set was to stamp out steel cabinets, like the Philco 511, the RCA Radiola 33, among others, but only Atwater Kent, and I think Crosley produced, steel consoles. My guess is that the appeal must have been with price, not with acoustics. My late uncle once owned one of these, his was gloss black with gold pin striping, I thought that it was quite nice, but with wrinkle pain it sort of reminds me of an old oil heater.
Regards
Arran

[morzh]

Arran

AK was indeed in autoparts business, that is what was the at the time Arthur A.K.'s business, the one he started in his dad's garage, but I thought that was mainly electric parts - motors, Unisparker ignition, generators and such, so what would he need large sheet metal machines for?

[Arran]

Arran

AK was indeed in autoparts business, that is what was the at the time Arthur A.K.'s business, the one he started in his dad's garage, but I thought that was mainly electric parts - motors, Unisparker ignition, generators and such, so what would he need large sheet metal machines for?

Mike;
  They manufactured electric fans too I think, as well as some auto accessory products like flag holders and such, I will have to look it up to find out exactly what they made other then electrical parts. They obviously needed presses to stamp out the bells for horn speakers as well as housings for cone speakers. They also manufactured just about everything else used in their sets, other then the tubes, in house, so they had the tools to do whatever they wanted to do in terms of metal work. There was an all steel set called the model 35 that came out in 1926 prior to these consoles, or the bread boxes, they were made like an upside down steel pan and the chassis and tubes were also upside down.
Regards
Arran

P.S Come to think of it many motors have a sheet metal housing to contain all of the parts like the stator, and brush holders/slip rings, so they probably had presses for stamping and drawing those out if A.K made them that way.