05-30-2011, 07:50 PM
Hi, and welcome!
If you do the work yourself, you can spend between $10-30 in capacitors and resistors to restore a radio. Tubes, when needed, add more to the tab. However, more often than not, most if not all of the tubes in an old radio are still good. It is the failure of capacitors that causes most of the problems in old radios.
As you can see, the cost of parts themselves is not expensive. But your time and effort in repairing the set adds up fast. Not to mention the fact that your 41-608's chassis is full of wires that have rubber insulation. This rubber dries out and falls off over time, and therefore needs to be replaced for safety and reliability. So now you're spending more money on either wires to replace every wire, or heat shrink tubing to use as sleeves over every old rubber-covered wire in the set (the method I prefer).
This operation adds even more time to your restoration.
So (and I'm not sure if this is what you are asking, but I'll provide this bit of info anyway just for fun), if someone wants to charge you $200-400 to rebuild the chassis of that 41-608, they aren't trying to rip you off - they are actually being fair both to you, and to themselves. Doing this type of work the right way takes a lot of time, but the end result is worth it.
I should point out that I noticed your 41-608 still has its original record changer, but the main tone arm is missing - only the optional record cutter arm is in place. The record cutter was used to actually make home recordings of 78 rpm records. But, the playback arm is missing. This may be a hard part to find. You might try asking West-Tech Services if they have one for sale.
http://www.west-techservices.com/
At any rate, enjoy your new find! And feel free to ask questions as you go along - that is what we are here for.
If you do the work yourself, you can spend between $10-30 in capacitors and resistors to restore a radio. Tubes, when needed, add more to the tab. However, more often than not, most if not all of the tubes in an old radio are still good. It is the failure of capacitors that causes most of the problems in old radios.
As you can see, the cost of parts themselves is not expensive. But your time and effort in repairing the set adds up fast. Not to mention the fact that your 41-608's chassis is full of wires that have rubber insulation. This rubber dries out and falls off over time, and therefore needs to be replaced for safety and reliability. So now you're spending more money on either wires to replace every wire, or heat shrink tubing to use as sleeves over every old rubber-covered wire in the set (the method I prefer).
This operation adds even more time to your restoration.
So (and I'm not sure if this is what you are asking, but I'll provide this bit of info anyway just for fun), if someone wants to charge you $200-400 to rebuild the chassis of that 41-608, they aren't trying to rip you off - they are actually being fair both to you, and to themselves. Doing this type of work the right way takes a lot of time, but the end result is worth it.
I should point out that I noticed your 41-608 still has its original record changer, but the main tone arm is missing - only the optional record cutter arm is in place. The record cutter was used to actually make home recordings of 78 rpm records. But, the playback arm is missing. This may be a hard part to find. You might try asking West-Tech Services if they have one for sale.
http://www.west-techservices.com/
At any rate, enjoy your new find! And feel free to ask questions as you go along - that is what we are here for.
--
Ron Ramirez
Ferdinand IN
