[Ron Ramirez]

(I have moved portions of this thread from my catchall thread Ron's Cabinet Work for the 2018 Season thread since this is not a Philco. The other thread will now concentrate on the Philco cabinets I'm working on.)

As many of you know, I had purchased this RCA Victor T7-5 tombstone at Kutztown in May.

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...-5_001.jpg]

I wrote about the chassis restoration of this set here.

So in July, I decided to attempt to redo the cabinet of this set, along with a few other radio cabinets.

July 29.

I began stripping the cabinet...

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...18_005.jpg]

I made fair progress on this RCA T7-5. It was painted in the dark areas. (How did I end up with all of these painted cabinets?) Anyway, the front and the right side are mostly stripped now. The paint on the left and right sides on the top is very stubborn. I have yet to strip the left side.

[Ron Ramirez]

August 21.

Having experienced difficulty finding the proper gloves to use with an acetone/lacquer thinner mixture, I finally acquired a pair of butyl rubber gloves and was able to more or less finish stripping the T7-5.

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...18_006.jpg]

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...18_007.jpg]

I'm wondering if I may need some wood bleach for its shoulders. The old black paint really stained the shoulders.

I'll need to do some extensive repairs to this cabinet. Summer is quickly slipping away. I'm wondering if I'll get this one done this season, or if it will have to wait until 2019 to be refinished.

[Ron Ramirez]

August 26.

The base of the T7-5 cabinet was very loose. Since the inner sides needed to be glued down, I decided to remove the base to make gluing the inner side veneer easier.

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...-5_081.jpg]

A little bit of the inner veneer between the dial opening and tuning shaft hole was also loose, and a small piece had come off. I have glued all that back together as well.

Tomorrow, I hope to glue the other side of the inner side veneer. You can see how loose and curled up it is - the side which is currently clamped down was worse. Once both sides have been glued and dried, the base will be reinstalled.

This cabinet is really in bad shape and is going to be quite the challenge. It is going to need veneer on one entire side, and a couple strips of veneer on the bottom of the other side.

[Ron Ramirez]

I just removed all of the clamps and the side that was clamped is looking pretty good now. If I run my fingers across it, I can still feel a little waviness, but it isn't visible. In any event, it is much better than it was.

Tomorrow after work, I will glue and clamp the other side.

[Ron Ramirez]

So, after gluing the inner veneer on both sides, here is how the T7-5 looks now:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...-5_082.jpg]

The next challenges: To reglue the top in back where it is peeling away:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...-5_083.jpg]

and the top veneer in front which is also peeling away a little bit:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...-5_084.jpg]

I will reattach the bottom to the cabinet first before tackling those jobs, however.

-----

I tried some paint stripper on the top "shoulders" of the cabinet. Most of the stripper merely soaked into the wood. It still does not look good. Wood bleach is now on order.

[Ron Ramirez]

Wood bleach arrived yesterday. I applied it to the shoulders of the T7-5 cabinet this afternoon.

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...-5_085.jpg]

After application to both shoulders of the cabinet:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...-5_086.jpg]

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...-5_087.jpg]

The directions say to let it soak in overnight and then sand off the residue the next day. So tomorrow, I shall see if the wood bleach did any good. This is the first time I have ever used wood bleach, so it will be interesting to see if it really works, or not.

[Ron Ramirez]

I only had time to look at the cabinet today but nothing else, as I was busy with the other two cabinets I'm currently working on. Plus, I had to mow the yard this evening.

But anyway...the wood bleach did lighten the white wood somewhat. Unfortunately it also lightened a tiny strip of the top veneer on each side. I'm not worried about that though, as toner should take care of that.

Photos later, probably tomorrow. I'm considering letting it go as is now, since this area will be covered in very dark toning lacquer anyway.

[Ron Ramirez]

So here is how the T7-5 "shoulders" look now:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...-5_088.jpg]

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...-5_089.jpg]

Comparing these photos to the photos in post #6 above, you can see a difference.

But perhaps I did not need to bleach the shoulders after all. Looking at the an original finish T7-5 picture shown here at Wikimedia Commons as well as another T7-5 on Russ' website (scroll about 2/3 down the page to see before and after shots of a T7-5), it is obvious that there was no real need for me to use wood bleach on the shoulders since these areas are supposed to be heavily toned with Extra Dark Walnut anyway. Oh well, it was good practice and I have the stuff should I need it again in the near future.

[Ron Ramirez]

After missing work today to have some tests done in Louisville, I decided to take it easy this afternoon and do something that did not require a lot of work.

An easy choice was to do some more gluing together of the T7-5 cabinet.

First, I glued the back of the cabinet top where it had some serious separation:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...-5_090.jpg]

and then, I reinstalled the cabinet base:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...-5_091.jpg]

This will leave gluing the front edge of the top veneer down somehow, and then putting new veneer on the left side of the cabinet - which should be a fun job. Not.

Should I be successful at this, however, the cabinet should then be ready for final sanding, sealing, and grain fill.

[Ron Ramirez]

It rained all weekend, so I did not get anywhere with my RCA 6T2 or Philco 66B cabinets.

However, I did make a little progress on my T7-5 cabinet.

First, a look at the back of the cabinet showing the end result of all that gluing and clamping:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...-5_092.jpg]

The left side, which is missing all of its veneer, had several gouged areas. Between conventional wood putty and Timber Mate, I think I have managed to fill all of the gouges:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...-5_093.jpg]

And I figured out how to glue down part of the front edge of the top veneer:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...-5_094.jpg]

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...-5_095.jpg]

I still need to remove the remaining glue residue.

This leaves the right front corner of the top veneer which still needs to be glued down:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...-5_096.jpg]

I will use the same technique I used to glue down the left corner: a bar clamp with one jaw against the top right grille opening (well padded with folded up paper to help protect the grille opening) and the other jaw against the top veneer, as close to the corner as possible.

This cabinet is slowly coming together (literally). Now I really have to figure out just how to attach new veneer to the left side. I have plenty of veneer. I just need to come up with a suitable plan for gluing and clamping.

[KCMike]

 Challenging cabinet repair.

[PhilcoJohn]

Ron its looking great! I do not know if I would have the know how to tackle something like that! 

[Ron Ramirez]

Thank you John!

I'm not sure if I have the know-how to tackle this either but I'm not letting that stop me.

Oh, and some of you are going to cringe when I say this, but I have made an executive decision on how to attach the new veneer to the left side:

Contact cement.

I've used it before, many years ago, on a large sheet of veneer which had come off one side of a 38-116XX cabinet. It worked out very well, especially for my first time using it and not really knowing what I was doing.

I've decided on contact cement because I do not have any good way to clamp the veneer down from all angles if I used carpenter's wood glue. I don't see any way of avoiding it.

So...a can of the stuff plus a rubber roller are on their way to me from Amazon.

[NostalgiaRadioTime]

That's what I use to install large pieces of veneer... contact cement and a roller. The roller works especially well if you have to wrap the veneer around a curve.

[Arran]

Ron;
  I have heard of people using PVA carpentery glue for attaching veneer, but they spread it on the cabinet, and on the back of the veneer first, letting it dry. I have not tried this, I've never had a cabinet emasculated as much as this RCA of yours to need an entire side re-veneered, usually a spot repair was good enough, such as re-gluing a lifted section of veneer, or patching a few chips, I have lots of bar clamps for this, well worth collecting even cheap ones. Anyhow what Bob Andersen seems to use is watered down Titebond brand wood glue, and a heat gun, apparently you can heat PVA glue once dry, and it behaves like the old fashioned hide glue. Contact cement works too, but it is NOT as forgiving, once it's in place you can't really adjust it.
Regards
Arran