[Jayce]

I took off right after work yesterday afternoon to buy this 38-116 in PA for $75. Guy seemed plenty nice and was around my age with two nice restored vintage cars and a small vintage TV collection he is working on. According to him, this radio was found in a home where it had sat in the basement since the 1950's. Seems about right as it appears the original electrolytic cans were removed and replaced in the late 40's, early 50's. The spearker was a bit loose like someone had tried to remove it at the same time the acoustic clarifiers disappeared. Not knowing how to remove the speaker safely and not able to see the bolts, I opted to pad the back of my Jimmy and transport the radio home face down. I have the speaker tightened up, but would like to know how to pull it from the cabinet safely. Now, onto cabinet pictures for this post. Next post will be the chassis.

   

   

   

   

[Jayce]

And now a couple pictures of the chassis:

   

   

[jerryhawthorne]

Very nice, I just finished a chassis for a friend. I can never figure out why, when replacing the e-caps people seem to like to remove and discard the old caps leaving a hole in the the chassis? Had the same problem on my friends and was lucky and found some duds to fill the holes.
Nice performing radio.
Jerry

[Ron Ramirez]

Jayce

Congratulations!

Now, as for removing the speaker, let me repeat the directions I gave to Jontz recently:

Be very careful when removing the large speaker! There is a conical piece of wood in front of the cone. One wrong move and you'll tear up your speaker's cone! Lay the cabinet face down on a thick blanket. Remove the two bolts and nuts holding the speaker in place on a wooden support, and then carefully pull the speaker straight out (NOT "up" as in "up toward the top of the cabinet" but OUT (as in "straight back"), as much as possible as the wooden support which holds the speaker in place will interfere somewhat.

[Art Hoch]

Good catch. And you got some original Philco grillecloth too!!

[Jayce]

Thanks again, Ron. I will be sure to be careful pulling the speaker out. Someone already buggered up the finish on the grill years ago, but I will still be careful. Going to be on the search for missing parts soon as well. I at least want to find the missing station selector so the radio will look more complete. Hopefully a set of Acoustic Clarifiers will be found over time as well.

[Jayce]

Oh, I'll also need to whip up a pair of blocks for the rear of the chassis to rest against as those are missing too. I am thinking this radio is lucky to still be with us!

[Gene Pederson]

Congratulations!!! That will be a great set when you are done with it!

Gene

[Jayce]

Well, I took it to my buddy's place and the first bit of work has begun on the chassis and speaker. Speaker had a few patches in it and I do have a few trashed shield bases and four missing tube shields on the chassis. Seems to be people needed tubes during WWII and they had to get what they could get, usually the stupid metal tubes that Philco seemed to hate! At least that is my friend's theory. We brought it up slowly and it seems all the transformers and the speaker are good, but we are not getting B+ to the tubes on the tuner chassis. He is going to work on it more tonight and even thinks he might have the missing part for my tuner. We will have to see how it turns out.

[jerryhawthorne]

Jayce, I did notice the shields missing, I think your friend is correct in that in the past people wanted to go to the cheaper and more available metal tubes. My friend is missing a couple bases off the magnetic tuner 6J5? tubes on the rear. You are also missing some parts from the tuner speed dial. There is a mute washer with tab that if flopping around in there can cause an instant muting of the radio. If it is flopping around, just lift it up and out so it doesn't cause problems in trouble shooting. Looks like you will need some parts for the tuner front.
Jerry

[Jayce]

Ah! I will have to let my friend know about that! That might explain why it didn't try to pull in any channels when we were fooling around with it tonight. I am wondering why someone pulled the speed dial off this thing? Looks like the rest of the internals are there.

[jerryhawthorne]

Jayce, you might look at the following link on my friends chassis. A little insight into the internals of the speed dial. Yes, there are two connections external to it. One is the extension of the muting switch going to the center tap of the volume control. It starts at the very base when the speed dial is removed and looking down the shaft. There is a circle down there that is much like the circle on the muting ring that slides down the shaft and has a tab that sticks up on the part of the yoke assembly you have, into an insulated slot on the yoke. If that makes sense. In fact, without the yoke assembly on, that tab that sticks up to go into it, if you touch it with your finger and make certain it is pushed back down the shaft, you will get a hum like touching the center tap of the volume control. A nice hum. If you put a alligator clip set up on the tab and connect the other end to the ground, you will mute the radio. Your yoke will do the same thing when you have the clip on the washer lined up in that nice recess and push the yoke down like pushing down for a preset button. That will bend that little clip off the washer to ground out on the contact to ground on the the insulated recess. I was missing the lever for the yoke assembly as you are. I was lucky to find someone who had one and also other things like the washers etc. It was a trip. If you need some pictures let me know. Mine is still apart, but going back together again soon.
Here is a link to my problems and more.
Jerry

http://philcoradio.com/phorum/showthread...841&page=3

[jerryhawthorne]

Jayce, no B+ on Most of RF deck, check the cadohm. Mine just went south.
Jerry

[Jayce]

Right now the 38-116 project is on hold. My friend has decided to put his workshop back out into his outbuilding and he is waiting for warmer weather to come before he does any other work. My chassis and speaker are already on the bench in building, but he has no heat out there yet. Right now he is only doing the little AC-DC table sets in the house.

[Arran]

There is nothing wrong with metal tube, at least in the front end of a set, though I don't really care for rectifiers or power output tubes in metal unless they were stock. But it seems like Philco had a temper tantrum against anything but ST style tubes in 1938, they went out of their way to make sure you could not use anything else without butchering the shield base, even GT style tubes won't fit. I don't think that metal tubes were any cheaper then glass when they were new, but during WW2 and Korea there were some tubes in some styles that you could not get at certain times.
Regards
Arran