[rfeenstra]

Thanks Ed.

[Stall-U-Rated]

Indeed!

And for these radios it looks right whereas chrome wouldn't.

I was kidding when i said "Chrome that sukka!!"

But i bet a nickled chassis would look pretty cool though..

I kinda want to do this to my shields (a tad rusty), but i bet it wouldnt look good against the untouched chassis surface..

Steve

[rfeenstra]

I did the rest of the shields tonight. I thought I would try it without the bead blasting part, and just use steel wool. Didn't work. I suspect the old tin has oxidized and that is protecting the metal. I rarely see a rusted shield. Before the plating works, it seems I had to remove that oxide layer right down to bare steel. Then they plated fine. As they said in the manual, preparation is everything. I wish that were not the case cuz I would like to brush plate the shield holders. That would mean removing them from the chassis. Not fun!

Steve, I believe Russ has nickel plated a chassis instead of the far more elaborate chrome process. I wonder how it turned out.

[mikethedruid]

As for chassis plating, I believe they were originally tin plated. Tin has the advantage of making the chassis MUCH easier to solder to with lead-tin rosin core solder, since it is tin that is already plated onto the steel base. Nickel would not have that advantage.

[rfeenstra]

A couple of pics of my progress.  the tube shields and capacitor can look much better re-plated.

Under the chassis I have 4 resistors in the power supply section that still need to be replaced.  You can see a couple of examples where I've paralleled a resistor with the dog bone to bring it into spec.  The ones that need to be replace have gone down in value rather than up.  I haven't  attempted to mold or fabricate a dog bone look alike as yet.  I may try with the power resistors. Also, the antennal coil that was fried by lightning needs to be wired in. One slight wiring error necessitated a splice. I didn't feel like lifting  the whole tuning cap to replace the wire with a longer one.  The end of the electronic restoration is in sight!

       

[EdHolland]

Superb progress.

I have desoldered the coil you need from the bandswitch assembly, and also found the wave trap. The coil will need attention. It obviously took a hit, causing damage to the windings visible on the outside of the form. However, the fine wires to the small coil within the tube are also broken where they meet the connecting lugs. I would think it is repairable, but needs surgery.

The wave trap is a little dirty, but a check showed the coil is intact.

[rfeenstra]

Awesome, Ed! Thank you. I will probably use my coil and transfer the inside coil, if that's possible. Getting the wave trap back to original will be good.

Spent part of the day rewinding the shadow meter coil. It was open, or high resistance, or correct, or open again. It all depended on how I held my mouth (is " hold your mouth right" a common expression, or just a West Michigan, Dutch thing?) Power resistors should be here Monday or Tuesday. They'll go in quickly unless I decide to mold them to look like the originals. When I get Ed's coils I'll be able to finish that up. I need some rubber tires for the tuner. Gonna check the speaker/OT this evening. I may be able to power this thing up by the end of next week!

[rfeenstra]

It lives!  I've never been accused of being patient.  I temporarily reinstalled the out of spec resistors and the old RF coil with a new primary winding similar to what was on it previously.  Just a lot neater and closer to the resistance listed on the schematic.  I get stations all across the dial on all bands.  I will do an alignment when I get the replacement dial as the old one is unuseable.  I'm looking forward to getting Ed's original coil in it and the proper power supply resistors.  Woo whoo!

Now I have another cabinet that needs to be refinished.  Crap!  I'm not fond of that aspect of restoration.  I've got about 4 lined up.

[Nathan Slingerland]

Awesome!

[rfeenstra]

Installed the BC band antenna coil that Ed so kindly sent me into the radio.  That solved a tuning problem I had with my home-brew coil.  Re-aligned the radio using the procedure outlined in the Riders information.  All bands tuned up very close.  The BC band is within a couple of khz all the way until over 1450 khz.  Then it's off by about 5 khz.  I can live with that!  Bands 4 and 5 are lined up as a compromise between 10.8 and 21.6 mhz.  There was almost no compromise.  Both are very close at that frequency.  In reality I used 10 and 20 mhz as opposed to the suggested frequency.  The suggested frequency comes from the original Philco single frequency, crystal controlled generator using harmonics to tune the entire radio.  Sensitivity is good and the inter station silencer works well.  I like it adjusted so that inter station noise is greatly reduced, but not entirely eliminated.  The wire wound pot for that was open at one spot in the winding.  A thin, narrow, tin plated piece of metal forced in between the windings and the insulator jumpered the open winding.  I'll see how long it lasts.

I've replaced the grille cloth but will need to refinish the cabinet.  I'll put it in the que.  Not my favorite job and I have several to do.  I'm procrastinating!

I'm pleased with the results and especially like the re-plated capacitor can and the tube shields.  I'm glad that works as ugly, oxidized tube shields have always bugged me on other projects where I get the chassis looking halfway decent.  I'll probably be going back to other projects to remedy the situation.

The stickers on the tubes are from 1937 and 1938 from a repair shop in Maine.  The cabinet has had the normal tube layout diagram removed and was replaced by a shipping label sticker from the same company.  I think I'll leave that as it is part of the history of the radio.  Interestingly, the phone number of the "Elmer L. Dobbins" company in West Jonesport, ME is "77".  I wonder if it still works.

The radio is tuned to WBZ, Boston.  Comes in loud and clear here at night along with Zoomer Radio out of Toronto, my favorite station, and WSM when I'm in the mood for old country or bluegrass.

           

[mikethedruid]

Congratulations. It looks beautiful, and, from what you say, works well. Can't ask for more than that.

[rfeenstra]

Mike, you must be a late nite person too!

[morzh]

You guys ever sleep?

[mikethedruid]

I'm a night person. I have always been. Now that I am retired I can indulge that quirk. I would be asleep right now but my dogs heard the mailman approach and barked a lot, then the mailman blew his horn to let me know he was here. He had my package from Thailand with the 2 6E5 tuning eye tubes. Saturday the carrier left a package stuffed into my mail box. He had squashed the corners so it would fit. It had 4 metal 6H6 tubes in it, but they were not damaged. Yesterday I left a note to my mail carrier about it. Turns out it was not my regular mailman but the weekend substitute who was the culprit. My regular mailman gave it to the local postmaster. LOL ! Now that things are peaceful again, after I finish my cup of coffee, I'm going back to bed.

[morzh]

I used to be a night person when I was much younger. I would easily keep working into the wee hours, going to bed at 5am. And I would wake up at 11am.

But as I got older, working at nights became less enjoyable. And now I am a regular guy who feels drowsy around 10pm.