[Ron Ramirez]

I have owned one of the seldom seen, early, inset-panel 89B cathedrals for a couple years now. I wasn't entirely pleased with its appearance, as the cabinet had a number of problems.

Here's a front view of how the set looked:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum/ARF/012.jpg]

As you can see, there is a poor veneer patch at top left of the front arch.

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum/ARF/015.jpg]

The photo above shows how badly the veneer on the top and sides was split.

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum/ARF/016.jpg]

And in the photo above, you can see how the rear arch is coming loose from the top and sides.

I let it go for a long time, thinking I might try to fix it one of these days.

But, as I have admitted before, cabinet work is not my strong point.

So...Steve Davis took on the job of making this set look good again.

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum/ARF/058.jpg]

An "after" shot of the front. Looks virtually factory-fresh, eh!

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum/ARF/064.jpg]

The same view of the right side of the cabinet reveals no more splitting veneer. Steve had to replace the veneer and substrate. The grain now runs front-to-back, as it did originally.

In the front of the cabinet, the front arch has new veneer, and the cabinet has a new front panel. In addition, the molding around the knobs and around the bottom of the cabinet is all new.

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum/ARF/068.jpg]

A back view of the set as it looks now. The rear arch is securely glued into place.

This 89B is now a showpiece!

Thank You, Steve!

And as a side note...Steve can now build replicas of the 89B cabinet, too.

I've been wanting to post this for some time now, but I have been extremely busy with schoolwork and rebuilding my website. Now that the site is rebuilt, I'll have a little more time for participating here.

[exray]

That's very nice work. As I struggle with my current project I appreciate the guys who do good 'no excuses' work.

Decal is wrong (haha) Now I see what might have cranked you up, Ron, on that ARF thread. No fault of Steve - you have to work with what is available.

[Ron Ramirez]

Oh, no, when I was talking about the decals on ARF, I wasn't even thinking about my 89B. As you say, it certainly isn't Steve's fault that no one makes accurate reproductions of the 1932-36 Philco decals. At least the decal Steve used sort of looks like the original; which is a lot more than I can say for that other decal Radio Daze sells, that looks nothing like a 1937 and later Philco decal.

[FStephenMasek]

Nice work! The restoration also shows the quality of the original cabinet design.

[Arran]

Oh, no, when I was talking about the decals on ARF, I wasn't even thinking about my 89B. As you say, it certainly isn't Steve's fault that no one makes accurate reproductions of the 1932-36 Philco decals. At least the decal Steve used sort of looks like the original; which is a lot more than I can say for that other decal Radio Daze sells, that looks nothing like a 1937 and later Philco decal.

That was something that also infuriated me about those decals going back to when Mike Tobin of Rock Sea enterprises made them, not the Philco ones specifically but the General Electric and RCA Victor ones, they were just plain wrong. Maybe they used different decals on the US and Canadian sets but not totally different. The word sets were also not that great, most of the sets I have used the word "Range" to designate the band switch, the word sets that they sold had multiples of the word "Band". It was obvious to me that there was very little if any research done on these and no consultation with restorers on these. I wonder how difficult it actually is to reproduce decals?
Regards
Arran

[Ron Ramirez]

Arran

I'm glad someone out there besides me is not satisfied with the Radio Daze Philco decals.

I should tell you folks at this point that I sent Radio Daze a note with my concerns about the decals. My pleas for authenticity were ignored, as they did not bother to reply. So they don't give a rat's behind, as long as there are enough people out there buying their inferior product who also do not care about authenticity.

For what it's worth, I had complained to Mike Tobin about the Philco decals when he was still running Rock-Sea; and he responded by designing new decals that looked like the original Philco decals. Unfortunately, right after our email exchange, Mike sold out to Radio Daze, and apparently his new work was either lost, or tossed out, by the new owners.

As I see it, there are two ways to do something about this:

1. More people who care about authenticity, like you, need to contact Radio Daze and complain.

2. Someone else needs to go into the decal making business and make correct looking decals.

If anyone else is interested in this subject, I can split this off into a separate topic. Something needs to be done about this.

Oh, and by the way, the original PHILCO decal looks the same, whether the set is Canadian or USA made. I have a Canadian 39-330AT, and have owned and seen other Canadian Philcos, so I know the only difference is, like the USA models, that the decal changed during the 1937 season to a bolder font but still, looking nothing like the Radio Daze crap.

[TA Forbes]

After completing my restoration of a Zenith 12A58 with white house paint and a velvet elvis painting for the grille cloth, I added authentic and absolutely correct "Topps 1972 Major League Rookies" decals to the cabinet. You must be 100% on your game when you are restoring any Zenith radio.

Seriously, it would be great to have a source of correct decals for my resto radios.

[Arran]

Arran

I'm glad someone out there besides me is not satisfied with the Radio Daze Philco decals.

I should tell you folks at this point that I sent Radio Daze a note with my concerns about the decals. My pleas for authenticity were ignored, as they did not bother to reply. So they don't give a rat's behind, as long as there are enough people out there buying their inferior product who also do not care about authenticity.

For what it's worth, I had complained to Mike Tobin about the Philco decals when he was still running Rock-Sea; and he responded by designing new decals that looked like the original Philco decals. Unfortunately, right after our email exchange, Mike sold out to Radio Daze, and apparently his new work was either lost, or tossed out, by the new owners.

As I see it, there are two ways to do something about this:

1. More people who care about authenticity, like you, need to contact Radio Daze and complain.

2. Someone else needs to go into the decal making business and make correct looking decals.

If anyone else is interested in this subject, I can split this off into a separate topic. Something needs to be done about this.

Oh, and by the way, the original PHILCO decal looks the same, whether the set is Canadian or USA made. I have a Canadian 39-330AT, and have owned and seen other Canadian Philcos, so I know the only difference is, like the USA models, that the decal changed during the 1937 season to a bolder font but still, looking nothing like the Radio Daze crap.

That is useful to know regarding the U.S and Canadian Philco decals. It's a bit off topic but I wonder if the RCA and G.E ones are the same North and South. The RCA ones up here say RCA Victor in a sort of script at the bottom and above that is a double ended logo with two circles with the lightening bolt RCA insignia in one circle on the right and a nipper logo in the circle on the left, neither Rock Sea nor Radio Daze has this decal or even a variation of any part of it. The G.E one has "General" on the right side, "Electric" one the right, and the GE monogram in the center, what is wrong with the Rock Sea (and likely the Radio Daze) version is the monogram has gold lettering on a clear background, all of my sets have the GE monogram with a gold background with black lettering on top, are these correct for American G.E sets?
Regards
Arran