[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