That is one style of capacitor that I have not figured out how to restuff, a Solar "Sealtite" cap. I always figured that the Solar "Sealtites" were kind of like a carbon resistor, that they were molded and there wasn't really a way to get them apart. One strange feature about the Sealtites is that they are one of the few vintage capacitors that I have encountered where many are still functional, which is interesting since Solar was apparently a cheap brand back in the day.
Speaking of difficult to restuff, there is a guy on You Tube that demonstrates how to restuff those older plastic molded capacitors, such as the Sangamo "Little Chiefs", and the black bumble bee caps (Sprague?). I don't know how practical this is but it clearly works, he cuts one end off, and then drills out the innards with a drill bit of the appropriate size.
The restuffing I do isn't exactly museum grade, but I hate the look of yellow caps or brown/orange drops under an old radio chassis, especially if it's a pre war set, post war I care less about.
However in the case of a Canadian RCA-Victor A-30 I am working on I don't care since I'm not planning to keep the thing, and someone already had a go at recapping it in the early 60s so most of the originals are gone. It's a six tube console from 1940-41 and is not rare, nor valuable, but I'm doing a quick and dirty job on it like some of the Fleabay and Radio Attic sellers do and have it come back to bite me.
Regards
Arran
Yes this is a topic that can get interesting for sure.
First off there is some amazing work being done in our hobby. I have seen examples of newly molded dog bone resistors, to new AK caps and labels. This is something that requires a good skill set and ingenuity, not to mention time. Most is so good you really can’t tell it’s new. And that’s the tip of the iceberg.
I would pay more for a radio restoration completed this way.
If I were to look under a chassis and it had quality workmanship, I would be happy wether or not it had restuffed paper caps. So as long as the job was done right.....
For my work, I will restuff electrolytic and other capacitor cans, Bakelite blocks, and bypass cans. Usually there is not a lot of extra room to pile in film caps for the power supply. Plus it looks better, and lead dress will be close to original. I do not restuff paper caps. If I was to do that, I would have to obtain the correct brand and part number etc. OCD kicks in so I simply won’t spend the time.
I will clean and paint a chassis. I have done three consoles this way including my 38-690. This is something you first see when peaking around the back.
Now if I had a high end Scott or 1000Z, or a WLW, then all the stops would come out. Replating the chrome, obtaining the right paper caps and resistors, and anything else would be done. I would hire the right person for things I can’t do.
This is how I am, but really it’s about you, your comfort level, and what makes you happy. I don’t worry too much about what someone may think if they pick apart my radios when I’m gone.
Funny you mention the WLW. The one we are all familiar with, probably one of two existing, was not done in this way. The caps were not restuffed, yet some extreme expense was incurred with other parts/cables. It was such a disappointment and probably the reason the radio can't seem to sell for the expected price. Quoting high level government official - - -"Sad".
Outstanding discussion. I especially appreciate the details each of you are relaying. I restored WWII and post war era Jeeps for 25 years and retired from it to spend more time on this hobby. Some of the techniques and methods used seem to take some time to master, but as with any antique restoration work, practice and more practice. I'm working on a 620B and have completely changed my approach to recapping and refinishing the cabinet due to the methods reviewed in this thread and others.
Reminds me of teaching teenagers proper auto repair. Much appreciated all. Your collective experience does make an impact.
One more thing on the subject of re-stuffing paper capacitor shells, don't assume that just because the brands and or labels of the capacitors you find under a chassis don't all match each other means that they are not all original parts. The big guys like Philco and Brand Z may have installed caps with their own branding on them but many of the small and medium sized manufacturers did that. For example in one post war Electrohome radio I have worked on the caps did not match, there was a mix of Aerovox and Solar Sealtite caps under the chassis, the only cap that was changed, in one of them, was changed by me 20+ years ago, and it was a Sangamo little chief I stuck in there because I didn't have anything else. I don't doubt that this was true of many other manufacturers, they probably needed some .05 uf at 630 vdc and found that Solar could furnish a reliable supply but Aerovox could not, however Aerovox could come up with all of the .005 ufs and .01 ufs they wanted, or maybe Solar offered a better deal? I see to have also remembered running into both Sprague and Cornell Dubilier paper caps in a Rogers I was working on, there were some replacements but those were mostly 1940s vintage so they got re-stuffed and put back in since they didn't look odd, yellow plastic do, so do orange drops and disk caps in a vintage radio. About the only detail I fuss about is getting a cardboard shell with the same capacity and voltage ratings as the O.E.M cap is it has been replaced, they all get 630 vdc yellow caps stuffed inside regardless.
Regards
Arran
That is very true. Even larger manufactures may have used several brands of caps. For example, a radio I know well, the Westinghouse "refrigerator", has multiple brands of caps. I have had as many as 3 of these on the bench at one time and many more at other times. Some have Solar caps some don't and some have a mix. I think that I posted pictures of the "underside" of several of these.
Another large manufacture that did this is Emerson.
Something that occurred to me recently, regarding restuffing. Do any of you fellow restorers include a note with a radio to warn future techs that the original looking parts are of modern quality?
It would be a shame if the restuffing efforts of today became victim to the side cutters of tomorrow!
I don't hold with furniture that talks.
(This post was last modified: 04-05-2018, 12:38 PM by EdHolland.)
That has been discussed. Some do - some don't or like me, sometimes.
I think that anyone that ends up with one of my radios and just starts cutting, isn't paying attention, being observant or a good restoration tech. After all, he was just going to throw all the original parts away. So it really doesn't matter.
On the other hand, if he were to open one up, he would know.
I also know that sounds a little arrogant, but having discussed this type of restoration for SO many years, I feel a bond with the people that value the extra work and think for the most part they would be able to tell if the radio had restuffed caps replica resistors and such and the people that don't care - - don't care. While I was operating a licensed and bonded repair shop all of my radios came with a multi-page description with pictures provided to the owner. These could be lost (I have copies) but are likely to add value to the radio 10--20 --?? years from now. So I hope they are preserved with the radio. At least they would benefit any future service(er).
I always leave a note in the best handwriting I can muster, seal it in a bag, date it and try to find an inconspicuous spot in the back somewhere to stick it. A couple of smaller chassis I've done had the original caps that I restuffed and put them in the exact same position as the way they came out (only a couple of untouched original chassis got this treatment), and used carbon composite resistors to reproduce the original look, so it was very difficult to tell if anyone touched it at all. Yes, I always leave a note.
Philcos with Bakelite blocks should always be restuffed since mounting parts to the existing blocks just won't work unless the old caps/resistors are removed from inside of the blocks, anyway.
Wonder if he left the original XY (in this case Y) caps in that Bakelite block where the 2 filters are grounded. In Philcos they are usually leaky paper.
The Bakelite blocks might be looked on as bad, nuisance, but in a way I think they are a blessing (if we have the right info). The original container is nearly bomb proof, and hides the new components perfectly.
I'm no expert here, learning all the time what choices to make, but one thing I have done and will continue to do is to keep everything that was removed during a restoration and hold it with the set in question. That way, restuffing and replicating is always an option for the future, and the appearance and nature of original parts is there for reference.
My Wife has experience in art conservation and museum work, so this sort of issue is of interest to her, and we often discuss the merits of different choices in restoration/fixing all sorts of things including radios. I don't do a perfect job by everyone's standards, but do weigh the balance of function appearance and originality very carefully. Hopefully, anyone finding and looking under "my" radios in years to come will be able to appreciate that, but who knows?
Kirk;
You have to love the workmanship of whomever worked on that model 80 you showed, it looks like he connected one of the new filter caps across the old, and the install of that fuse holder floating in space is just top knotch. Bakelite block caps are some of the easiest ones to re-stuff, it would take longer to cut one up then it would to re-stuff it, plus it makes you look like a putz who probably shouldn't be touching the underside of any radio.
Regards
Arran
While we're on the subject of re-stuffing caps, I ran across something today that I'd really appreciate some opinions and/or advice on.
While trying to re-stuff an Aerovox .01uf 400V cap, I found the ends sealed with a grayish, rock hard material I haven't seen before. The cap had some wax over the outside, and once I did get it un-stuffed, I found what looked like the original paper cap inside. It looks like there may be one more Aerovox cap in this radio that is the same way. The cap I did this afternoon says "Type 484" if that helps. Has anyone seen other Aerovox caps like this? It took a couple of hours with a Dremel tool, then successively larger drill bits to free the cardboard sleeve for re-use. Is there an easier way to do this little job?
Lastly, I found this cap soldered into the radio wrong - a wiring error. All of this makes me suspicious that someone has been here ahead of me.
The radio in question doesn't seem to be valuable, it's an Arvin 440T (Red) circa 1950 and seems to be an earlier production run. The SAMS Photofact I got for it doesn't match the circuit I'm seeing, so I found a Rider's schematic that is a lot closer. I'm using this radio to practice my restoration skills, as I am still pretty new to the hobby so any advice on techniques will be greatly appreciated!
My present method for cap re-stuffing is to wrap the new cap in black electrical tape (Scotch or 3M brands only, and stretch it a little as I roll it on), slide that into the cleaned out cardboard tube and seal the ends with bees wax. The last couple of caps I did I went a bit further (too far?), also cleaning off the original leads of the caps, until I had bare wire (coiled) where the leads were attached to the original capacitor.
I wire wrapped and soldered the 20 gauge leads of the new cap to the 18 gauge leads of the old cap, and the connections were hidden under the bees wax when finished. I put some of the original, darker brown wax over the very end of the caps. It's much harder to tell that this cap has been re-stuffed, as compared to my first attempts where the bees wax is a lighter color and the leads protruding from the cardboard body are a noticeably smaller wire gauge.
The original wax seems to have a somewhat higher melting point than the bees wax I'm using. Has there ever been a problem with the wax leaking back out of re-stuffed caps, due to the heat from the vacuum tube chassis?
I use an old toaster oven to cook out the hard wax that many of these caps have in the ends, about 200 degrees or so usually works, but in some instances they used some sort of putty or plastic that refuses to melt, some of the "Good All" brand caps use this ( one guy on Y.T. refers to them as Bad All), I have not encountered this stuff in any Aerovox caps as yet. The ones with the porcelain shells are almost a waste of time, maybe one could get them apart with a drill but the ends are filled with cement of some kind.
Regards
Arran
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