10-11-2005, 08:55 PM
Here's another of my project Philcos - we affectionately call this one the "flood" radio, and it has a great story behind it.
The story goes like this. A good friend of mine who also collects radios, but isn't into the technical aspect, gave this 41-250 to me a few years ago. He said I could have it "for parts," and at first glance he may have been right. He got it from another friend who lived in Fargo, ND at the time of the Red River floods in the spring of 1997. You may remember the devastation in Grand Forks and East Grand Forks, MN from that time. Fargo, which is about 80 miles or so upstream (the river flows north to Winnipeg), didn't have as widespread damage, but this person's garage had perhaps about 6 inches of flood water in it, which is where the radio was - on the garage floor. Anyway, the radio found its way to me, and here's what I did with it.
Fast forward to the winter of 2000. The cabinet was very dirty from the floodwater silt, and the chassis was worse - a good 3/8 inch of dirt piled on the inside, and having dried out for a good 3 years. The cabinet wasn't warped or delaminated, so it must not have sat in the water for more than several hours, maybe a day at most. The escutcheon was shot (as they usually are with this vintage), the buttons were OK, but the power button was replaced with a toggle switch at some point. It also had all the knobs.
I made the decision to restore it.
When I got into the guts of it, that's when the fun started.
The power section had been replaced with a non-original transformer and rectifier tube. Instead of the original 6 volt 84 rectifier, it was modified for a separate 5U4, and the transformer with its own 5 volt secondary. Figuring the transformer was shot anyway, I thought I would take the chance anyway, and apply power with the tubes removed.
Yep, you guessed it.
It wasn't the 4th of July, but it was amusing. After about 10 seconds, the transformer began to snap, crackle and pop, so I quick yanked the power cord. 45 minutes later, the transformer was still warm. The transformer is now officially history.
I managed to find a suitable transformer and ordered a new socket and rewired it back to the original configuration with an 84. The speaker also had issues because of the water, and figuring that I'd eventually find an electrodynamic speaker someday, so for now, I've got a PM speaker with a resistor in place of the field coil. After an alignment, it sound pretty good.
I wanted to have the power switch restored as the original push button configuration, and managed to come across a switch I could mount in its place. It doesn't have quite the amount of spring to return the button, but it works most of the time. Until I find a better one, this one will do the job.
The rest was a standard recap and out of spec resistor replacement. I happened to have a set of the wine colored pushbuttons on hand, so I didn't have to order any. I still have the original 7, so when I find another brown one, in it goes. I also ordered a replacement escutcheon from Larry Bordonaro. I decided to keep the original call letters in place, which included WNAX/Yankton, WDAY/Fargo, WCCO/Minneapolis, CKY/Winnipeg (or Toronto, I don't remember), and several others from that region.
A full strip and refinish was next. Here's the before and after.
[Image: http://i326.photobucket.com/albums/k420/...-250ba.jpg]
It didn't come out too bad, if I don't say so myself. Like I indicated earlier, I'd like to put in an electrodynamic speaker if I can come up with one, but it's doing pretty good for now, especially considering the path it took to get to this point. It now resides in our family room in a place of honor, with a good story to back it up. I hope you enjoyed it.
Bill
The story goes like this. A good friend of mine who also collects radios, but isn't into the technical aspect, gave this 41-250 to me a few years ago. He said I could have it "for parts," and at first glance he may have been right. He got it from another friend who lived in Fargo, ND at the time of the Red River floods in the spring of 1997. You may remember the devastation in Grand Forks and East Grand Forks, MN from that time. Fargo, which is about 80 miles or so upstream (the river flows north to Winnipeg), didn't have as widespread damage, but this person's garage had perhaps about 6 inches of flood water in it, which is where the radio was - on the garage floor. Anyway, the radio found its way to me, and here's what I did with it.
Fast forward to the winter of 2000. The cabinet was very dirty from the floodwater silt, and the chassis was worse - a good 3/8 inch of dirt piled on the inside, and having dried out for a good 3 years. The cabinet wasn't warped or delaminated, so it must not have sat in the water for more than several hours, maybe a day at most. The escutcheon was shot (as they usually are with this vintage), the buttons were OK, but the power button was replaced with a toggle switch at some point. It also had all the knobs.
I made the decision to restore it.
When I got into the guts of it, that's when the fun started.
The power section had been replaced with a non-original transformer and rectifier tube. Instead of the original 6 volt 84 rectifier, it was modified for a separate 5U4, and the transformer with its own 5 volt secondary. Figuring the transformer was shot anyway, I thought I would take the chance anyway, and apply power with the tubes removed.Yep, you guessed it.
It wasn't the 4th of July, but it was amusing. After about 10 seconds, the transformer began to snap, crackle and pop, so I quick yanked the power cord. 45 minutes later, the transformer was still warm. The transformer is now officially history.
I managed to find a suitable transformer and ordered a new socket and rewired it back to the original configuration with an 84. The speaker also had issues because of the water, and figuring that I'd eventually find an electrodynamic speaker someday, so for now, I've got a PM speaker with a resistor in place of the field coil. After an alignment, it sound pretty good.
I wanted to have the power switch restored as the original push button configuration, and managed to come across a switch I could mount in its place. It doesn't have quite the amount of spring to return the button, but it works most of the time. Until I find a better one, this one will do the job.
The rest was a standard recap and out of spec resistor replacement. I happened to have a set of the wine colored pushbuttons on hand, so I didn't have to order any. I still have the original 7, so when I find another brown one, in it goes. I also ordered a replacement escutcheon from Larry Bordonaro. I decided to keep the original call letters in place, which included WNAX/Yankton, WDAY/Fargo, WCCO/Minneapolis, CKY/Winnipeg (or Toronto, I don't remember), and several others from that region.
A full strip and refinish was next. Here's the before and after.
[Image: http://i326.photobucket.com/albums/k420/...-250ba.jpg]
It didn't come out too bad, if I don't say so myself. Like I indicated earlier, I'd like to put in an electrodynamic speaker if I can come up with one, but it's doing pretty good for now, especially considering the path it took to get to this point. It now resides in our family room in a place of honor, with a good story to back it up. I hope you enjoyed it.
Bill
Sent from my Pentium II on the AT&T Dial Network
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