[kiwi_steve]

Back in the early 30's Philips had a presence in New Zealand, and had started to build a manufacturing plant here but it was far from complete so they had radios produced here by Radio Corp of NZ (RCNZ - absolutely no relation to RCA).  These radios used Philips valves, but were apparently otherwise an RCNZ design.  One of these models was the 516P - a 5 valve broadcast band radio that came in two different cabinets.  A short one and a tall one.  I had the tall one, which can be seen here in a 1936 advert, and I suspect from the ARTS&P labels we had for licensing on our radios that the shorter ones were an earlier model, maybe the previous years offering.

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Mine had quite a poor cabinet (it had been a feast for bugs) and thought it was a goner and I would not get to own a good 516... 

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but not so long ago I found 2 more on a high shelf in a back room of a small second hand shop in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere.  They were covered in bird poop and in pretty bad shape, and the other cabinet model... but I recognised the dials and knobs and managed to get them for $40 for the pair from memory due to their state.  I was stoked.  They got a quick wipedown and went into the collection and have been waiting for love ever since.

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Yesterday I thought I would see if I could do a 1-day project and get one going and looking ok.  One day?  What was I thinking  

I picked the one with the better cabinet, and grabbed the stripping gear - no, not the velcro pants and clip on bowtie... paint stripper and acetone... get your mind out of the gutter.  Wait, what do you mean I was the only one thinking that?... ok, its late... I should stop waffling now... any time now... please make it stop...

Anyway, a couple of hours later I had this:

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Please don't note the stain from spilled acetone on the grillcloth.  It survived 80 years and then some idiot wrecked it by being careless.  I still want to kick myself.  The acetone practically just ate the gold weave and disolved it... leaving holes.  sigh... so I ended up having to take it out.

as this was an exercise in speed with some care and minimal attention I didn't want to do too much to the cabinet.  Actually I really prefer to leave some life in it so the dings and scrapes were left as-is.  I simply painted the black trim black again, and gave the whole cabinet a really good going over inside as well as out because a bird had sat on the OP TX and power-pooped down the inside of it! (to say nothing of all the rodent poop in the bottom)

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I then put some new felt feet on it, shellaced the whole thing, and hit it with the dark oak Briwax.  Thats it, done.  By lunchtime.  

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And of course I needed new grill cloth.  All I have that is suitable is some repro stuff I got for the 37-630... PHILco... PHILips... near enough

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As for the radio itself, I ran out of time due to other commitments... but I'm working on that now.  I'm planning to just get it going, but I can never just do that... and I'm already soaking some parts to get rid of rust...

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I hope those side-contact valves are ok - I have none in my spares... although there is a couple in the other chassis...

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So thats my 1-day project... 2 days and counting  

[Paul Philco322]

I like that dial and the Knobs with the logo on them.

Paul

[KCMike]

 I like how you left the cabinet somewhat weathered. Looks like the underneath is in good shape; no rodents made it in there. Lot of cleaning on top side of chassis, but should clean up nicely. Did you check the coils and tranny yet?
 Good luck with restoration.

[kiwi_steve]

I like that dial and the Knobs with the logo on them.

Paul

I'm quite fond of the look as well.  I guess Philips had money to throw at custom knobs.  The dial is similar in size and shape to the Pacific set I posted in here a while back... I suspect it was a standard size and fitment for RCNZ at the time.  I'm pretty sure the dial glass (plastic) will fit both.

 I like how you left the cabinet somewhat weathered. Looks like the underneath is in good shape; no rodents made it in there. Lot of cleaning on top side of chassis, but should clean up nicely. Did you check the coils and tranny yet?
 Good luck with restoration.

Oh, there were plenty of rodent droppings to go along with the birds little calling card... but the damage they did was very minimal thankfully.

Yes, all coils ohmed out ok - one has been replaced in the past (aerial coil) - but there is an original RCNZ coil in the other chassis so I think I'll swap them over.  The power TX is fine, but the HT lines were rubber - so I've replaced them with cloth.  I also noticed one of the 6.3V lines to the rectifier has been arcing through the insulation to the chassis... interesting...

All the caps are done, the tone control was disconnected, part of that cct was removed and the control is shot so I need to replace that and fit the missing cap.  Fortunately its fitted in the other chassis so I can follow it.  Its pretty much ready to fire up and test, just a little bit more to do.  I've painted the transformer cap because that was rusty and I'm unlikely to ever pull that apart again - so while it was apart to replace the wires I thought I should just do it.  Then I start thinking, "maybe I should just strip a bit more..."... its a slippery slope! lol... but its a 1-day job, not a full resto... or is it...

I'm building up a schematic for it too since there isn't any service info for this model anywhere.  Its mostly done but its considerably more time consuming and mind-bending than following an existing schematic to rebuild a chassis.  Its also made slightly more complex by using Philips tubes and style which does not follow what I'm used to.  I'm getting there though.  Having two chassis' helps and hinders since there are subtle variations.  A friend also has one, but his uses gold series 4V valves rather than the red series 6.3's so thats another variation to consider.

Getting there slowly, but not as slowly as usual 

[kiwi_steve]

Done with the schematic... its taken a while, but now at least there is one... E&OE!

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[kiwi_steve]

Well, I got a bit carried away with the cleaning... the yellow stuff (nicotine?) takes a bit of getting rid of... and rust remover and a cotton bud is the easiest way I've found (phosphoric acid)... I went through about 100 cotton buds cleaning and derusting this... took a good few hours.  So much for a quick turnaround resto...

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But bench testing proved that its working nicely... and a seat-of-my-pants alignment showed it was well off... and its quite a good performer now.  

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So a quick clean of the knobs in the ultrasonic cleaner while screwing the speaker baffle back in with the new speaker attached and bolting the chassis down... then all back together and powered up for the first time in a few years I would imagine.

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The speaker that was in it was very scratchy and distorted... I think it needs cleaned and the cone realigned.  The speaker from the other one sounded pretty good considering it only had about 1/3 of its cone... so I might try making a new cone for that one at some point. Anyway, I have a spare 8" Rola speaker that fits perfectly for now so thats what it got.

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I'm really stoked with it... It needs a few polishing details and it has an instability problem - there is a shield on the EF6 IF amp, and without it all you get is motorboating... and even with it sometimes it breaks.  I may try another valve if I can find one... otherwise it is what it is.  I also think its got the wrong rectifier in it - Its got an EZ2 and I suspect it should be an EZ3 as the EZ2 is an automotive tube and most circuits I found with a similar lineup use the EZ3... still, it works and the voltages are about right.

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Yes, I need to clean the valves - forgot to do it in my haste to get this 1-day project finished (in about 4 days... not bad!  )

And the dial looks great if you don't notice the bit of grill cloth fur hanging down in front of it 

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[sam]

nice job

sam

[klondike98]

Lookin' good

[Ron Ramirez]

Well, I got a bit carried away with the cleaning... the yellow stuff (nicotine?) takes a bit of getting rid of...

I noticed that you were cleaning an aluminum electrolytic capacitor at the time.

Do you have Mother's Mag & Aluminum Polish available in NZ? That stuff is great for cleaning and polishing aluminum parts such as old aluminum electrolytics. Mind you, though, it will also remove anything printed on the can!

[kiwi_steve]

Well, I got a bit carried away with the cleaning... the yellow stuff (nicotine?) takes a bit of getting rid of...

I noticed that you were cleaning an aluminum electrolytic capacitor at the time.

Do you have Mother's Mag & Aluminum Polish available in NZ? That stuff is great for cleaning and polishing aluminum parts such as old aluminum electrolytics. Mind you, though, it will also remove anything printed on the can!

We have some Mothers stuff available here - I have been using Autosol for polishing aluminium (the Airline 62-316 I posted previously about is a shining example of that in action).  The nice thing about the rust remover is that its not hard on pencil or pen marks - there is some writing on the back of the chassis which is still there despite me cleaning it... if I'd used Autosol, as you say with the Mothers product, everything would be gone.

I wasn't going for a full restoration here either... just a clean up.  The results for 3-4 days of part-time work are pretty good by my usual standards... this kind of thing used to take me months and the cabinets would worry me into inaction... so I kind of just took the 'git-er-done' approach and used what I had. 

Its developed a fault in the dial light though, so I need to pull it apart again.  Possibly one of the lamps - which are probably pretty old.  I might just LED it.  I have some 12V LED strip which will be dimmer than the 5V stuff I was using and might be a little more mood-appropriate for the set.

[kiwi_steve]

A quick final note on this set - a few days after I finished hand-drawing the schematic out (4 days of back-and-forth checking and drawing and redrawing) the librarian from the NZ Vintage Radio Society emailed me and said, "Look, we just took possession of a collection from an old retired radio serviceman and he had a great collection of Philips stuff - is this the radio you were looking for?"

   

So that was nice

And I then had a vehicle blow up - so against my better judgement I listed it for sale... so now its gone.  But its in a vintage radio museum which is good... and I do have the other one, and a good working knowledge of the internals now... so I might do it all again and keep the next one...

   

[KCMike]

  Too bad about your vehicle. The job you did on the radio came out very nice, and like you said, you have another one, so the one that went to the museum will be in good hands.