[Mr. Radio-Man]

Hello everyone,

I just got this Philco 513 today and I am wondering how I should go about repainting the metal.
I would like to keep it as original as possible but that would be vary difficult with how much paint is chipped off.
When I get around to it what paint/paint colors should I use weather its spray paint or from a bucket.
To remake the gold rectangles I would probably make a cut out and mask the other areas so I don't paint the other parts.
I know there's a trick you can do to make the blurry yellowish blob design on the middles in the gold rectangles with spray paint but I would still like to keep most of the original paint on it still if possible.

Thanks.

[Arran]

This is one of the "Spanish Brown" 511 series models, which is the most common version. https://philcoradio.com/gallery2/1928a/#Model_511 I don't think that there would be any shame is repainting the cabinet if you could figure out how to do it correctly, I'm guess that an airbrush may be the best method. It's sort of a fogged or fade effect, not dissimilar to what was done with many wooden cabinets with tone spray lacquers, basically the center of each panel is the base colour, where the edges are sprayed over in a darker brown to create that dark border fading into the lighter part. The gold pin strip may have been painted on afterward, possibly by hand with a brush, as what was done with cars, and old machinery.
Regards
Arran

[klondike98]

The other possiblility would be to try to touch up the chipped areas. To be honest, i think this would be a pretty difficult approach but I have watched art restorers do amazing things with touch up. Probably have to fill l the chip with some type of filler and then do the color matching, touchup. Probably a final over coat of clear when done. I don't think I could do it and make it look good. I'd probably try the total repaint with airbrush or fine spray nozzle to get the right pattern.

[Arran]

I've been somewhat focused on sets of the 1920s lately, and from what I've noted there was a sort of "Fad" with steel cabinet sets in the late 1920s, I'm not sure whom started it but almost every major manufacturer, and several mid rank manufacturers started turning them out from 1926 through 1930. For obvious reasons the steel cabinet models were a lot more durable then the wooden box models, so a lot of them have survived, the main thing that lets some down is this was also the same period when casting mechanical parts from pot metal became extremely popular. In part because of their rather generic appearance, and the pot metal issues, they are not as popular as the wooden "coffin" sets, which are also very common. If the set comes with the matching speaker this definitely helps things.
As far as I know the Philco 511 series sets did not use pot metal, or if they did it was in some place where it was not critical. On the other hand they also purportedly manufactured 67.000 of them, most in Spanish brown, so whilst you could conceivably conserve, and touch up the existing paint it is a lot of work to make it look right, and it won't make the set worth any more then just repainting it. It's hard to tell from photos but it also looks like the existing paint may have some adherence issues, where the paint is missing it looks like it scraped off rather easily.
Regards
Arran

[RodB]

I restored a 514 (Asian green) some time ago and found the paint very rugged. Other than the rust removal, I had no problem with cleaners or solvent in removing the garage dirt and nicotine. I recall the tuning dial might have been pot metal. I believe the Philco 86 used a similar chassis.

[Arran]

Rod;
That is an interesting question, the 511 series sets, other then the Spanish Brown, were ostensibly hand painted, at least the flowers and other motifs were. So did they use the same finish on the regular Spanish brown sets as they did on the 512, 513, 514? In any event getting an exact match to fix the chips and scratches would be tricky without it showing, and I am not sure if it's worth it. It looks to me like they may have put on a yellowish light brown coat as a base layer, and then coated over it with a tinted coat, going heavier along the moldings, then either the pinstripes next, or a clear coat on top, but without seeing it I'm only speculating. Think it's basically it's finished like a guitar body. The RCA Radiola 33s had a similar look, but with a faux wood grain, but they unfortunately used pot metal castings around the lid, and the corners, it was basically a cut price Radiola 17 or 18.
With regard to the chassis Philco certainly wanted to get their money's worth out of those pan style chassis, I think they were using it in one form or another up until 1933 on the 112 and 115. My model 96 has one that is very similar other then tube count, all they did was punch the holes differently for different models.
Regards
Arran

[RodB]

It sounds very much like what I had. I found some photos of the finished radio. I was thinking there might be a primer but I don’t see one. I didn't do any restoration on the paint because the owner wanted to see if an artist friend would take care of that, which was fine with me.so, you can see the lower left bottom has bare metal and I was looking at that for possible primer showing.

   

[MrFixr55]

I wonder whether or not radio manufacturers knew about primer. RCA Radiolas built by Westinghouse and GE were notorious for rust. If I remember correctly, I sanded down or used paint thinner to remove paint from a Radiola 16 chassis to repaint. It came off very easily. Granted 37 years difference allows for growth in paint technology, but stripping the paint off my 1964 Lincoln to the bare metal was an entirely different story!

[DaleHCook]

I had no problem with cleaners or solvent in removing the garage dirt and nicotine.

If you had nicotine on a radio you would not have cleaned it, because you would not have known it was there. Nicotine is a colorless and odorless chemical. What you were cleaning is tobacco tar, which is an entirely different matter. Nicotine is what makes tobacco addictive, tar is what kills people.

[Mr. Radio-Man]

Hello everyone!

Didn't realize how many people replied on this until now.
For right now I am going to leave it as-is sense I wasn't going to do anything at the moment.
I was mostly just seeing if anyone else had any recomendations on repainting it.
If I do get to repainting it I will fill in the chips and see how it looks and if it looks fine I'll leave it but if not I might repaint the areas where the paint is like that.
On the back and other side is perfectly fine, it's just the lid and 2 sides that are bad.