02-04-2009, 12:00 AM
Hello Mike! Just about every vintage radio chassis has some corrosion/dirt/debris issues! Some worse than others, but generally speaking, most of the slime is due to humidity to the metal-chassis from the air moisture over the years. Back when I first started restoring vintage radios, I thought this issue was very significant to make sure to remove all the debris & make the chassis look brand new.Not true unless your a "purist", and like shiney chassis to look at when rear panel of radios are removed! In fact, now, about all I do is remove all the tubes, & blow compressed air from my shop air-compressor to blow-off all the dust, debris, & especially in the tuning-condensers plates ( full open). I then wipe-off the chassis with the excess-beer I have spilled on my workbench via a dirty papertowel! Works great too! As long as the orig tube-sockets, & pin connections are all good & clean, the variable-tuning cap, clean, relubed,and rotates freely, ( if not add some WD-40), your in business to start electronic restoration! After restoring several-hundred vintage radios over the yrs, from early TRFs- Superhets, etc, as long as the chassis still holds the tube-sockets, trans, etc, they are worthy of electronic restoration if their "main" orig parts are still present. Its absolutely amazing how a last-nights leftovers beercan with some "backwash" works to clean these type radio chassis! Once you fire-em-up after electronic-restoration, it only takes a few minutes for the beer smell to go away too!I learned this special chassis-cleaning idea from a old WW2 USAF trained tube radio tech!Seems the beer leaves a chassis fully cleaned & non-corrosive after application too! Ever seen the inside of any beercan with rust inside it? It works!!