[jrblasde]

I’ve still been working on the cabinet this week. I’m at the point now where I’ve gotten the bezel around the dial finished. I made it darker than the surrounding veneer so that it’d be more pronounced. It’s got a nice wood grain!

   

About that glass dial, it is a reproduction from Radio Daze. The original dial was “fine” (I say fine because it was not cracked, but the lettering was flaky and dull), but I made a fatal mistake. Back in April, I removed it from the cabinet so I could strip the finish from the surrounding bezel, and I made the careless mistake of laying it on the ground. Not more than five minutes later I knelt down and shattered it with my knee.

   

Today I worked on installing the new dial into the metal bracket. Once I got the broken glass out, I could see that the flocking was in poor shape.

   

I used a wire brush to clean the old flocking off of the metal, then I redid the flocking. Finally, I installed the new dial with mounting rubber.

   

   

I put the most recent coat of shellac on the cabinet this last Thursday. I’m going to let it sit for a full week to harden, and then I’m going to apply the water slide decals.

Another aside, I need to replace the speaker fabric. I’m having a difficult time finding a “ribbed” pattern like this. I checked Michael Katz’s website, Big River Radio, and I’m still perusing eBay. I found a vendor on eBay who has quite a few patterns, but I’m also looking for other recommendations.