[RadioSvit]

Ok.... In the fourth year of the war, I still decided to return to an active hobby. For more than three years, I did not restore radio cabinets, but only occasionally did small repairs. As I already wrote here, a well-known friend of mine from my small town before the war received a contract to work in Canada near Ottawa and this winter accidentally came across a sale of a rather large collection, remembered my hobby and offered a deal that I could not resist. Namely - for a complete restoration and restoration of about 10 radios, I will be able to choose several of the best as payment for the services provided. Considering that I am already retired and have much more free time, I simply could not help but agree. Especially considering that I will have the opportunity to better familiarize myself with and study many unique radios from Canada and the USA.

So, the first radios started arriving in early March. And the first was the Canadian General Electric A-87. Since it was shipped by the economical "sea delivery" option by the Meest Express company, the delivery time was two months. If you do not take into account the small damage to a piece of veneer, then we can assume that the journey of this radio console to Ukraine was successful.

   
   
   
   

[RadioSvit]

After removing the control knobs, chassis, dynamics and scale frame, I first started restoring the torn piece of veneer.

   

I glued it to the old place, sanded it, applied a wax tinting putty in the color "Walnut"....

   

And when I sanded the entire body, I applied one layer of tinting varnish in the color "Walnut". I was satisfied with the result because I myself could not see the previous defect.

   

What next? The speaker is in excellent condition, does not need repair. The chassis requires replacement of electrolytic and paper capacitors and I always do this process when there is time after another operation to restore the cabinet due to the need to dry the varnish.

   
   

[Paul Philco322]

You will be keeping very busy, you may have to go back to work for a break. Paul

[RadioSvit]

After applying the filler to the entire body, I noticed that the shades of the facade and the side and top walls were very dissonant and I didn't like it.
   

I had to choose tinting stains and tinting varnishes for a long time until I managed to achieve harmony ...
Below is a link to four videos of the entire restoration process (if someone has the patience to watch everything), and for all normal people who value their time, I'm giving a photo of the body after all the work is completed.
   


[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTg22iv0...ex=5&t=22s]

[RadioSvit]

Paul Philco322.You will be keeping very busy, you may have to go back to work for a breakIcon_smile. Paul

To relax during the break from work, I will have to write more posts on the Philco forum. 

Here is the second part of the video

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXPrDR2o...aE&index=4]

[RadioSvit]

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYzQIUW3QHI]

Well... While the varnish is drying up, I started repairing the chassis...
   
Of course I started by replacing the paper and electrolytic capacitors...
   

[RadioSvit]

I also checked all the radio tubes on my Hickok 530 tube tester. The 5Z3 kenotron turned out to be faulty, all the other radio tubes are good.
   
True, attentive readers will immediately see my mistake - when I took the photo, I forgot to switch the tester settings to the 5Z3 measurement mode and the settings remained on the measurement of the previous 6f5 pentode radio tube.

The problem with the 5Z3 box turned out to be more complicated than I thought - I don't have it. But there are many Soviet analogues of the 5Z3, but with octal sockets. So I had to replace the 4-pin socket with an octal one.
It was ...
   
It became ...
   

I also filmed the process of checking the radio tubes

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZIAcVzJ3TM&t=12s]

[morzh]

Great job on the cabinet.


PS. In the US notation, "kenotron" refers to specific type of tubes; we call regular rectifier tubes just that, "rectifier tube".
I understand this (being from the USSR myself), but many folks will not know what a kenotron is.

[RadioSvit]

Thanks for your help Michael. In fact, this video is only an intermediate result. Later I had to apply another tinting layer of "Walnut" varnish to even out the shades of the facade, top cover and side walls. But I haven't created this final video yet, I plan to do it this week.