[Ron Ramirez]

Wow! Amazing! Great work, Steve!

[TA Forbes]

Steve, that is a great way to make some dogbone resistors!!

[morzh]

Great work, Steve.
Much simples than the one that's I guess we were familiar with, with using molds etc.

What do you use for paints and how long do you think it will hold it before the paint will start cracking and peeling off (to paint plastic tubing I giuuess you need something special).
What kind of plastic do you used?

[Steve Davis]

I'm not sure what type of plastic the tubing was, it was a pickup tube from a large lawnmower gas tank. The paint was just some cheep Walmart spray paint. I don't know how long the paint will stay on, but I think I made these resistors six or seven years ago.

I will try to take some pictures of steps involved in making the resistors and post them. It will be a couple of weeks though, most of my radio stuff is at our other house.

Steve

[morzh]

No rush, with the weather and all it'll be some time before I get myself to get back to the radio.

[morzh]

   
This is the bottom view.
   
Now this is a good one: this cap, which leaked from both ends, instead of being removed, or at least isolated by cutting wires, was left untouched and fully connected...
   
And this cap simply soldered in parallel to it in a convenient place.

Some weekend warriors.....

Lesson to everyone, especially those who just start restoring or simply buy restored radios from someone: DO NOT rely on a previous guy knowing what he was doing and actually understanding the principles EVEN if he somehow "fixed" the radio and made it play.

Check, check, and then check again. Only trust yourself.
PS> You can also trust Ron, and to some degree the rest of us here

[Arran]

It looks like a previous repairman paralleled some of the Bakelite block capacitors as well, hopefully they disconnected one end of each before doing that.
Regards
Arran

[morzh]

You forgot quote marks around "repairman".

[morzh]

Here goes the first cap restoration.
   
The "Rabied" cap. It was connected and powered whenever the radio played. The newer cap was installed simply in parallel.
Considering that my meter still showed 6uF and the new cap is 10uF, summarily they created a 16uF (and dangerously unreliable) capacitor which is twice what's required (8uF).
   
Took a hacksaw and simply took off the cap. Highly recommend for this type caps.
Some liquid escaped. I washed the whole thing with dish detergent, and then heated up with a Milwaukee gun and left to dry.
   
Took the newer cap that used to be in parallel, made sure it measures as required, and put it inside. It is a larger type cap but still a good one, 10uF 450V.
Since the body is minus and then insulated from chassis, the negative wire from the inside cap can be bare. The central positive pin is covered with two heat-shrinks, thinner and then thicker, then wrapped in the insulating tape, to create a diameter that will go in where the rubber gasket was before. This will create enough dielectric strength for 400V and quite more.
   
Attached the cap. The cap sticks well even with no adhesive, this is why I like this method. And the seam cannot be seen unless specifically looked for.
   
Same cap from the front.

[jerryhawthorne]

Mortz, not wishing to get off target from the restoration of that lovely radio but I have to ask Steve about his dog bones. My question is about the soldering of the two wraps at each end together. Would seem like the heat required would melt most plastics?
Jerry

[Steve Davis]

Mortz, not wishing to get off target from the restoration of that lovely radio but I have to ask Steve about his dog bones. My question is about the soldering of the two wraps at each end together. Would seem like the heat required would melt most plastics?
Jerry

Jerry, melting the plastic has not been a problem for me. I use a piece of tinned buss wire to extend the leads out of the tube, it solders very easily and just takes a couple of seconds, not enough time to melt the plastic.

Steve

[TA Forbes]

Yes, never trust ANY set until you remove it from the cabinet and have a look-see.

I like Dave Cantelon's statement about whether or not to replace your 70-year old wax/paper and electrolytic caps: "Would you drive your antique car on 70 year old NOS tires?"

Of course not. Electrolytics are first on the list due to the catastrophic effect they can have on your rectifier tube (cheap, easy) and your power transformer (un-cheap, un-easy). I learned this lesson the hard way when I trusted a previous fix on my RCA 263. TRY finding an RCA 263 power transformer.

BUT also bear in mind that several of the wax/paper caps in your set may also be connected between B+ in your set and ground. This can also have wonderful effects on your components that are also in the same B+ circuit. (another lesson learned the hard way).

[morzh]

Well, I tend to replace all but micas, provided the latters don't do anything stupid.
I've just fixed the second electrolytic, dual 2x10uF. Interesting, one cap was still 12uF and another was 20uF. So one thing it did not do is to dry up.
But "the more the better" does not apply here, so I still opened it up and fixed it.
Looks like new.
Will post photos later.

[morzh]

Found the answer myself.

Never mind.

Was looking for 30-2029 cap value.

It is 2x1uF and 2uF 300/350V (I think) cap

[morzh]

These caps, with a groove at the bottom, a the easiest to stuff.
This one is a dual one with both minuses connected to the aluminum can.

   
First cut off along the groove, closer to the top part, so the bottom has the narrower part left.
The top part should have the remnants of the bend removed, with deburring tool or exacto knife, remaining a perfect cylinder.
   
After cleaning and gutting, drill holes in bot rivets and an extra one.
   
Insert the stuffing, threading both pluses through the holes in the rivets, and the minuses connected together and then soldered to a common wire - through the extra hole.
   
This is how it looks from the other side.
   
After that, upon putting some epoxy, glue or JB Weld upon the internal walls of the top part close to the edges, insert the bottom part in it. It will go in as the narrow part still remains.
Why putting epoxy on the inside of the top and not outside of the bottom? Simple. The top would start pushing the epoxy off of the bottom part, so you have a mess to clean off then. On the other hand, if epoxy is inside, it is pushed inside and all looks clean, nothing at all to wipe off.