[TimE]

Hello, I haven’t been on here in a while since I have restored all of my home radios, but I now have a 1941 Packard equipped with a Philco P1935 Color-Tone radio. My question is what material should be used for the plastic tri-colored disk that is located on the tone knob. For those that might not know what I’m referring to the accessory brochure describes it as; “New, different and typically Packard is the synchronized “Color-Tone” lighting of the radio control dial. Blue, Ambe or Red lights flood the radio dial, each blending into the other in a rainbow range of color as the tone control of the radio is changed to accentuate the perfect tone qualities of the broadcast.” The original color wheel is present but is shrunken and distorted. Any ideas on how to reproduce it works be much appreciated.

[klondike98]

Welcome back Tim.

Maybe if you post a photo of the original color wheel folks might be able to generate some ideas to help you. With just the description you mentioned I googled colored plastic sheets and one of the hits was
https://www.eplastics.com/SAMPLE-ACRYTRA...VEQAvD_BwE

This set looks like it has blue, orange and red in it. Just a thought.

[Phlogiston]

I think that those used to be called "jellies" (jellys?).

I have seen transparent sheets of colored plastic for sale at hobby shops. These should work if the lighting does not get them too hot.

I would suggest using an LED bulb to remove all possibility of melting the plastic.

Russ

[mikethedruid]

The colored, transparent plastic sheets used to cover theater and stage lighting are known as "gels." They are heat resistant. I recommend using INCANDESCENT lighting with them despite the heat produced. This is why one uses specially designed lamps for stage lighting, to minimize the heat problem. The reason for using incandescent lamps with gels is that LED lights give off only 3 very narrow light frequencies of red, green, and blue if they are made to imitate incandescent lights, whereas incandescent lights give of a complete spectrum through the visible light range and beyond, both above and below. This is why one must be very careful using LED bulbs to replace the tail light bulbs in cars designed for incandescent tail light bulbs. Only the red produced by the LED bulb will pass through, the green and blue will be filtered out, and the red produced by the LED may not be the same frequency as the red passed by the tail light lens, and so will appear quite a bit dimmer than the original bulb. The same is true using gels with LED bulbs.