[kiwi_steve]

Wow.....rough shape.
Lots of patience will it take (it's not me, it's Yoda in me speaking)

If we're doing this thread in Yoda-speak then 'Do or do not, there is no try'.

I will do

[radiohenry]

Steve ,
That's quite a bit of work but a very interesting cabinet. Good luck and thanks for sharing.
Henry

[Joe Rossi]

And we impatiently await the next chapter of your restoration... Great detective work getting the information together!  Joe

[kiwi_steve]

Thanks Henry and Joe... its a little bit on the back burner at the moment... I'm really busy at work and have been moving family stuff to here from about 6 hours drive away most weekends and just haven't had time to devote to it.

I'd love some feedback on the cabinet - I'm not entirely sure what to do with it to get it looking spot on. The lacquer I had mixed up for the chassis is some automotive stuff - and they do have brown tones. From the experience of spraying the gold onto the chassis I can see that it starts out quite seethrough with the first coat - I'm wondering if a brown coloured automotive NC lacquer would be suitable for a timber cabinet and if I could use different numbers of coats to get the stepped tones? I wish we could get mohawk here... but there is pretty much nothing in toned spray lacquers that I've been able to find. The cans are $36 + tax each so I don't really want to spring for one if its not going to work - but I will if there is a good chance it will. I might try hitting some plywood with some shellac and then the gold just to see what the adhesion is like.

Cheers

Steve

[kiwi_steve]

Progress forwards and backwards... but mostly forwards.

First of all, as I mentioned a while back I managed to track down the owner of a world-famous Pacific 'Elite' console, which has the exact same chassis as my 'Raleigh' table model.  A month or so back I got some super cheap flights to Auckland (other end of the country) to visit the radio and spend a day with it, taking 200 photos and 5 pages of notes including the schematic - which proved that the schematic (previous page) I thought was right, is 99% right (and the bit that isn't has been modified by someone in the past, so I'm calling it right anyway).

Here is the Elite... its a gorgeous radio, albeit a little smaller than I was expecting but still quite stunning.
[Image: http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff222...pl5qod.jpg]

And under the chassis
[Image: http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff222...kaxyys.jpg]

And some of the notes I took
[Image: http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff222...1ycg6z.jpg]

[Image: http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff222...tgyy0n.jpg]

[Image: http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff222...aigox1.jpg]

So I'm good to go electrically - I have everything I need, its just a case of sticking it all together

For the chassis: I've stripped a Radio Corp of NZ (no relation to RCA) model 18 chassis because its mostly the same as the Pacific 6-Valve Dual-Wave chassis, and played with the mill at school to get the dial cord slot moved and in the right place (Pacific - 2nd knob is for tuning, model 18 - 3rd knob, and the Pacific drum is a little closer to the front of the chassis), then used the mill drill to redrill the holes to mount the tuning gang (one of them was half an existing hole out - so having a 2-axis table and accurate mill drill made moving that hole nice and easy).  I measured for this by making a paper template of the front of the cabinet to make sure I had the dial in the right place compared to the shafts so it would centre nicely when all bolted up.  I then fitted some old but still nice and supple mounts from a junk chassis I've stripped sometime in the past and tried the cap on for size, then fitted it all up in the cabinet to check for alignment - all seems pretty close, and there is a little bit of wiggle room to tweak it anyway.

[Image: http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff222...matr9h.jpg]

[Image: http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff222...fhufc6.jpg]

[Image: http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff222...wckk44.jpg]

[Image: http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff222...cihpeo.jpg]

One mistake I made was to get the chassis dip-stripped before I began on it.  I did it on advice that it would be a good idea to get the cad plating off before painting - and I was expecting to get a clean raw-steel chassis back - but I got it back with a dark hard coating on it that has made a mess of everything inside, especially the earth tags spot-welded inside the chassis... so its going to take some work to get it back to a point where I can finish the chassis nicely... but I'll get there.  It does sand off with some effort.  I have a friend will a small low-pressure bead blaster cabinet... I'll try that, then I might tape off the earth tags and all the holes and clear poly the inside, or maybe cold galv... not sure yet.  Poly will probably be the better option I suspect.

So thats progress so far - I've also been working on some other stuff, mostly another Pacific set - the model 38 - which I've been posting over at ARF about in the electrical resto section there.  Its been a long year at work, and its nice to be back in the saddle doing radio work again.

Should anyone want to build their own Elite (I know someone over at ARF already did) - I do have some measurements to work from, and a reasonable archive of photos which I mean to get into my photobucket account over the next few days.

Cheers

Steve

[OldRestorer]

WOW,
This is the first time I have seen this thread... Way cool!

[Joe Rossi]

Steve, Thanks for the update. I've been waiting for the next installment. I'm impressed with your dedication to learn the history, find and verify the schematic (how many would fly somewhere to see another radio??), chassis layout, etc. Keep us up to date. Thanks again, Joe

[kiwi_steve]

I flew there because it wasn't just any old radio... it's an Elite. I don't know how many of these exist any more - I'm only aware of 2 after a considerable period of searching and researching. There is bound to be more, but I don't know where they are.

Here are the electrical pics of the Elite
http://s241.photobucket.com/user/4wdstuf...t=3&page=1

And here are the cabinet pics, with measurements where I could take them
http://s241.photobucket.com/user/4wdstuf...t=3&page=1

Thread on ARF about the Elite
http://antiqueradios.com/forums/viewtopi...1&t=202836

And the thread where someone went, "WOOO, I can build one of those"
http://antiqueradios.com/forums/viewtopi...1&t=206650

Sorry, I know thats a slight deviation from what I'm doing but its relevant, and very very cool