Like most radio collectors, there is a point that a person becomes more choosy about which radios to add to the pile - I mean - collection.

For most, this limitation is applied to radios without a high number of tubes or radios that are not rare or valuable (rare does not always = value). Or radios from a certain period. Almost everyone stops buying consoles at some point.

Some collect brand-name radios. Zenith is always popular as are the high-end manufactures like Scott. Crosley is not usually considered a high end manufacture (WLW excluded). This thinking is what led to my comments about passing on Crosley "Fivers". (See posts below)

Well, the WLW is not the only high-end Crosley. In the collection of radios that was donated last year was a 9-tube Clipper which is a 915-EK. This chassis employs a shadow meter rather than an eye-tube so it would be the equivalent of a 10-tuber w/eyetube. Actually, a shadow meter is superior in that this one has lasted 85 years which is very unlikely for an eye-tube. It is a table model. It is rare. Check, check, check! Maybe I should keep this one.

It is difficult to find another picture of the Clipper though the cabinet may have been used on other models like the 1055 EK Constitution from the same year.

There was very little corrosion on the chassis and what existed was easily treated.

This is another radio that had many original components removed and replaced with modem ones. I was able to locate original parts (mostly capacitors) by original part numbers and they were rebuilt and reinstalled in the chassis. Above is an after picture.

Finding original parts to rebuild is becoming more difficult. I have used most of my Crosley-branded caps in recent projects. If anyone has a stash of old parts that were removed from any early radio, I could use them for rebuilding and that would be superior to using them to line a garbage can (clink). (You can always ID a bad paper cap because it goes "clink" when it hits the can)

It is tough to compare this radio with other manufactures products such as the Philco 116B since the small speaker that Crosley used is clearly inferior to the 10" used in the Philco (which also uses a shadow-meter)

​https://www.russoldradios.com/blog/big-philco-tombstone-116b

The cabinet was in good shape but had been refinished - so I refinished it again.

Colored dots on the band selector match band colors on the dial.

Pictures copyright Russ' Old Radios

Most mornings I spend about an hour answering radio-related emails. Many fall into the categories of :

How do I get my radio fixed?/ help with repair.
What is my radio worth?/Will you buy it?
What kind of radio do I have?

This Email falls into the last category. I found it particularly interesting, so, with permission, I am posting it here.


Thomas from Stockholm said:

Dear Russ !
 
 Our family owns this very old big radio that used to belong to king Gustav the 5th of Sweden in the 1930 ´s . Would you with your expertise now what model it is and when it was built ?! 
 
We would truly appreciate your knowledge!
​

It is a very large radio/phono combination.

I suspect that the switch, center/rightt is a radio/phono switch as you would find in a Panatrope of this vintage. (Panatrope was the name used by Brunswick a company that used RCA radios up until the time that RCA acquired Victor)

Looks like a Radiola escutcheon without the RCA/Radiola text.

It has an Electrola decal.

This was my reply:

Thomas,
 
The radio section its self appears to be a RCA Radiola 28, but that is not the model number of the whole assembly. 
 
In 1927 and 1928 RCA was in the process of acquiring the Victor Talking Machine Co. That is where the RCA Victor name came from. This is an Electrola, a name denoting the electric phonograph as opposed to a wind-up model. It is likely to say Victor talking Machine Co somewhere on it. The gold escutcheon near the roller knobs would have said “Radiola 28 Super-Heterodyne Radio Corporation of America had it not been made to be put into the Electrola (Victor) cabinet.
 
I do not know the model of the whole RCA Victor cabinet/assembly Which may have been a very limited production or even a custom assembly.
 
If you were to send larger pictures I might be able to tell more.
 
If you like I could post your pictures and story on my blog. Other people might know more about it and reply.
 
Russ

Radiolas are not my specialty. I can tell you about the many versions that I have worked on - This is not one of them. The radio is in storage so no additional pictures are available at this time.

Thomas is going to monitor this blog for comments, which are invited.


Steve, on ARF Said:

​That looks like a Victor Hyperion. That is quite a radio/phonograph!

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/rca_hyperion.html

-Steve


Fran, on the Philco Phorum said:

​Greetings,
What the king had there was a Victor Hyperion (Victor model Fifteen-One).  !926 to 1928 which listed for $900.)) US.  The radio was an RCA Radiola 28.  This was Victor's first all electric Orthophonic Radio - Record player combination.  It is described on page 222 of Robert Baumbach's book - Look for the Dog (first edition).
There should be a plate within the record compartment (to the rear of the compartment on  or adjacent to the motor board) with the Victor model name and number.
It was impressive at 57.25" High, 47" Wide and 19.5" deep.
The cabinet styling was Italian in nature, using walnut and maple.


Michael, posted this on ARF:

Here's some info on the Hyperion: http://www.victor-victrola.com/Hyperion.ht
​

https://books.google.com/books?id=Ck9IG ... or&f=false

Vintage Hyperion Upgrade: hhttps://forum.talkingmachine.info/view ... 9&start=10

You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1LdVTMcBTE

​Buster Keaton

Thomas has provided a history of the radio:


 Briefly ….   :  my granddad ( founder of Centrum radio )  Bertil Gylling senior delivered his famous ” Centrum royal map radio" 1933 to King Gustav the fifth, 
in return from the royal castle he got the Victor Hyperion to store or just take care of . The Hyperion has been kept in its ”BOX”  since then. 
The "Centrum royal map radio" came about from a joint venture between the King and my Grandfather.  A map over Europe was displayed on the ” lock ” over  the radio & gramophone ”   and  when one  of  33 european stations
was reached a light showed where on the map the station was situated   ,  for example  Wienna or Copenhagen    .    ( se pic  )    ….  high tech in those days. There are  only 3 left in the world of this radiorarity . 
My father Bertil Gylling ( 92 ) is still around to tell the story .
 
If you want to se what the factory of Centrum looked like in the 30 / 40 ´s     check this  film  (  in Swedish  ……  ;)  )   the part about Centrum start after ca 3 min after an episode about Violins .  very old school cinema reportage style …
 
https://www.filmarkivet.se/movies/den-underbara-tonen/
​

at the royal castle in the 30 ´s   more or less every day  a  sort of  ”   Lord Chamberlain ”   played records  mostly classical music to the King &   entourage,   you see the  Centrum royal map radio and how its placed +    stacks  of 78 records  in special  shelfs  :
​

We all appreciate Thomas and his family for sharing this history with us.

Don't miss the radio assembly video (link) that Thomas provided. It is one of the best that I have seen. Makes me feel old when I see that young woman throw the big table-top into its box - I have a hard time lifting those onto the bench.
​https://www.filmarkivet.se/movies/den-underbara-tonen/

​Russ

Meissner was mostly a radio parts supplier who also produced "kit" radios to be assembled by the user. They were part of Maguire Industries Inc.

I believe that, like many manufacturers in the radio business, they wanted to show what they could do and the result was the 2961. 

Produced around 1947, the radio is AM-FM-SW with a Webster phonograph and 29 tubes.

As rare as the radio is, there are even fewer with cabinets. While I have not weighed this monster, it has to check in at around 100 lbs. The cabinet is well built, but the weight probably added to the demise of many cabinets through rough handling.

​I generally don't care for late 1940's cabinets but the wood work on this one makes it stand apart even before you open the doors.

The radio incorporates a separate amp/power supply. The amp uses 4 6L6GA tubes in PPP (parallel push pull ) configuration wired for triode operation. This yields about 20 watts output which is a considerable reduction in output from what a 6L6 amp with a pentode configuration could produce. The sacrifice was made in an attempt to produce better audio quality than a pentode could (in theory).

Above:  I know this resembles the scene from Star Trek  The City on the Edge of Forever  just before the radio blows up, but let me assure you that there were no flames here.

https://lancemannion.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451be5969e2019b00e60fea970c-pi

As fun as that would be (flames) it would also be a tragedy since the picture above is not likely to be repeated any time soon. Just  one of these amplifiers is so rare that having a pair for stereo is likely unheard of.

​It is as unlikely as having two Zenith Stratospheres on the same bench - -

 - - Well I'll be darned, two Zenith Stratospheres.

​Anyway, I did add a preamp and had a listen using the speakers in my office.

TWO Meissner 2961 amps wired for stereo.

How did they sound? OK. Like many high-powered amps, they seemed to lack a little on the top end (treble response - NOT tribble response - she can't take much more of this)

In a way I was glad that they did not sound great since they take up a lot of shelf space and I might have never put the radio back together again.

Interesting that the FM dial is "channelized" rather than reading in frequency as most modern radios do. This format was adapted from the previous FCC channel allocation (around 42 mhz.) but it was generally dropped following the war in favor of the 88 - 108mhz display format. This leads me to believe that the design was from 1946 or earlier. It probably took some time to put such a radio into production especially in such limited numbers.

​The channel numbers on this FM dial are 200 to 300.

The control area is leather and is normally protected from wear with a clear plastic sheet, removed here to reduce glare.

The upper row of push-buttons are for bass and treble control and work considerably better than the more common "tone" control. The lower row are for AM (only) station presets. The station presets are controlled by the row of knobs at the bottom. This arrangement makes setting preset stations easy. The radio drifts very little so there is no need to fiddle with the controls after selecting a station.

While the outside of the cabinet had been refinished, and, I refinished it again, the interior, including the speaker baffle, was in good shape, so it remains original - and yellowed by age. One day the new lacquer will yellow as well, but for the moment it is kind 'a two-tone. I believe in preserving as much as possible while making the project function and presentable and, hopefully, future owners will see enough value to prevent the destruction of American Technological Artifacts like the Meissner 2961.

Russ

The phonograph is a single speed, 78RPM record changer with a ceramic cartridge. Watch the demo above.

At one time there was an outfit that would paint your car for $29.95. When I was working at a Motorola S.S. in Portland we would install two-way radios into cars that became taxis. They often got painted at this place. To save time the painter would roll the windows down rather than masking them, too bad about the yellow paint on the seats. These paint-jobs did not look too bad from a distance, up close was a different story indeed.

We have always thought that an old radio would make a great bird house. We even have a radio that Sue named the "Bird House".

Airline "Bird House"

Of course, no birds are living in that one, though, at one time some other small critters might have lived in there.

Of the large group of Crosleys that were donated (see posts below) there were a few that looked real good  - from across the room. On closer inspection, the cabinets were shot. The buccaneer (on the tree) became parts for another unit that had been in the "wood shed" for several years.

Having a donor chassis was a big bonus for this restoration.

I even restuffed the candohm that had an open section. Would I do this again - well - I did on the Crosley Clipper ( 9 -tubes, rare, more later). This is kind of a pain and I would not do it for a common radio.

I am pretty sure that there is an eagle living in this one - though it might have just been a sparrow. Why don't you stick your hand in there - - - 

As mentioned previously, Bill Reid has donated  the remainder of his collection to the museum. I did not count, but it was several hundred radios in total. Bill's main interests were boat-anchors/amateur gear and radios produced by the Crosley  company, mostly from the 1930's and 1940's. (more on the big receivers later).

So when I was not playing fireman (see post below), after the soot cleared from the air, I was able to work on a few of the cabinets. I had started with the big 8, 9, and 10 tube radios first. When I came to the 5-tube radios that Crosley called Fivers  I would normally have set them aside, possibly offering them for sale as projects, but here was an almost complete collection. I saw it as a case of the total being greater than the sum of the parts, not to mention one of the fivers being a 25 Hz mains unit.

These radios were all restored as a group. The cabinets were finished with nitrocellulose lacquer that had been slightly modified for less gloss -  between gloss and semi-gloss. All of the cabinet had been refinished previously and several were missing parts, mainly base molding, which I reproduced with my table router.

The chassis had also been worked-on. Some of them did function and a few, particularly the 25 Hz mains unit (center) did not. Check out the size of that 25 Hz transformer! This thing is heavy and the chassis weight might have tested the rather simple cabinets.

The later chassis (typically 517 model) is on the left and a 515 is on the far right. The 25 Hz unit is marked 555-5. YES(!) Crosly model designation can be confusing. On the web you can find examples of the model 555 and a console model 5555 but don't confuse either with this one (555-5).

The chassis had many parts missing/replaced. So I had only a few of the correct by part #, original capacitors to rebuild. My stock ran out after the first couple of restorations so I had to improvise. I did use the correct brands - Crosley was not picky, Solar, Sprague, CD and Aerovox are a few of the original paper caps that can be found with the Crosley W-XXXXX part numbers printed on the caps. The other issue is that Crosley was fond of multi-section paper caps. These are seldom seen in other manufacture's units. Basically, you have a paper tube with 2 caps in it. This assembly has a lead exiting the center of the tube which often is soldered to a mounting clamp. This center lead is often connected to ground.

By now you are probably wondering what this has to do with Greek Muses.

Thalia is the Muse of comedy and Melpomene is the Muse of tragedy. They are often seen pictured together in the theater - one smiling face and one with a frown.

Still unclear? Well, remember when I brought you this? https://www.russoldradios.com/blog/heres-looking-at-you-hes-looking-at-you
Too many lacquer fumes, some say.

​Had I not restored these as a group I probably would not have noticed - 

I probably would have never noticed that the later 517 looks less-happy than the early model.

Note the differences in that one uses a bezel and one doesn't. More to the point, the two router cuts on the right and left of the grill are different. The shorter ones seem to replicate a sad face while the longer ones make the cabinet look happy.

In trying to find original examples of these cabinets I noted that some seemed to have gold paint in the groves rather than black. So I did one each way.

​Too many fumes? Maybe.

The scene from our back-40 yesterday as the Worthington Fire grew quickly to over 500 acres. It is not yet fully contained today. Temps over 100 deg. F.,  humidity  in the single digits, wind gusts ~15 mph.

This post is a continuation of the "Farm Radio" post below.

When I purchased this radio off of P-Bay things were Covid-slow. So I decided to do a more in depth restoration of the chassis. Little did I know that Bill Reid was going to donate the rest of his collection - about 3 truck loads, but, more on that later.

You usually see this cabinet with chassis #5516 which would make it a model 5-S-127, one of my favorite radios. Those are not uncommon. I think that the radio was as popular at the time of manufacture as it is now. There seem to be quite a few around, but popularity has driven up the prices above comparable radios by other large manufactures. 

Above are a pair of 5-tube AC powered chassis. There was a lot of variation in this chassis construction. Even for the 60hz models, there were at least 2 transformers, at least 2 different speakers with different field coils which also created some circuit differences. So if you work on one of these be sure that you have the appropriate schematic.

Other than the components, there was also a painted and a plated chassis that often has green, rusty patches like the one above.

The battery powered chassis has a different layout than the AC versions. Somehow I failed to take a proper "before" picture prior to the removal of all of the rusty/corroded components. With everything removed it is easier to see the extent of the rust above. Note that there is no cutout for a power transformer.

I don't like to paint chassis that were originally plated. Besides the issues with ground points being corroded and subsequently , painted, I  just  don't want a radio that has been altered in that way. SO it was time for MORE FUN WITH CHEMICALS AND ELECTRICITY!

 I had a disk brake hub that was keeping a tarp from blowing away. If you are going to de-rust steel a steel anode is necessary.  NEVER use stainless steel. 

​The white powder is washing soda, easily found at WM.

Just add water, hook your chassis to the NEGATIVE lead and suspend it in the solution, not allowing contact with the  steel plate.

I am avoiding using the term "Anode" here since it can be confusing, ESPECIALLY for a person that is accustomed to working with vacuum tubes. If you want to get it straight in your head, you will have to do some reading and I did not want to bore you here.

The result will be a stream of bubbles coming off of the rusty chassis and a nasty looking film of orange gunk will float to the surface eventually sinking to the bottom.
THE GASSES EMITTED IN THIS PROCESS ARE COMBUSTIBLE  and that is why THIS SHOULD ALWAYS BE DONE OUTSIDE. And, if you are not absolutely sure about the technique DON'T DO IT AT ALL.

Remember when Circuit City  went out of business? I went to the liquidation sale, late in the day. There I found the power supply that had been used for the car radio display and managed to acquire it for $25. I was not sure what I would use it for at the time - but now I do. You need a LARGE DC supply for rust removal. It does not need to be well regulated - or regulated at all, but you will need a few amps and 12V is a good voltage. You can use a car battery if you missed the Circuit City sale.

Then all you have to do is replate the chassis - NO, not with copper, with nickel, then with copper. Acid copper (bright copper) plating solution is too acidic to plate steel. Instead it will just turn black/nasty and corrode some more.

You might want to fill some of the pitted places with solder - easier said than done. Solder works best on the nickel plate rather than the bare steel. Use an iron - NOT a torch.

I really don't do this all that much (and for that reason, take my advice with a grain of salt - like you usually do). I was happy with the results. Kinda' PINK, but it will be the color of an old penny after a while.

Did I mention having to remove EVERYTHING from the chassis including all of the riveted components? Well, now you have to put it all back!

Some people use bolts or screws. I use rivets like the originals, besides, isn't hitting a chassis with a hammer something you have often wanted to do?

​BUT WAIT - THERE'S MORE!

Almost every metal component on these chassis are plated with something. The tuning cap is plated with nickel (not the aluminum plates) and the IF transformer cans are plated with zinc. Talk about dissimilar metals! I think that the cans needed to be plated to avoid corrosion of the base metal which seems to be aluminum. 

After dealing with the nickel plated components I moved on to a new challenge - zinc plating - which is supposed to be easy(er).

Above: IF and RF coil covers.

As found
Sanded/cleaned up
Replated

​Keep in mind that I am showing you what I did, not telling you to do it.

​Below is the configuration I used for plating zinc. The zinc foil, which is very soft/bendable, was purchased for very few $ off of Amazon. The plastic bowl I borrowed from Sue. I don't think that she will miss it - - or want it back. You must use a variable voltage power supply. So the big sucker pictured above will not do.

I easily formed the foil to the shape of the bowl insuring electrical contact for my + connection. The part was hung off of 14 ga. copper wires and the little pieces of paper insulated against shorts and subsequent explosions. (see gasses are explosive above)

At this point I should mention that I performed this process on the 5516 (AC) chassis, pictured at the top of the post, as well as well as the battery powered chassis that was going back into the cabinet. I have found that once a process is started it is easier to continue rather than restarting (and relearning) it later. So the pictures of re-plated items are a composite of both chassis.

The IF/RF transformer cans came out a dull grey, just like I expected them to be. During the plating I noticed that the zinc could appear more like a galvanized finish if I deposited less zinc on the base metal. This included the wavy lines and markings typical of a galvanized surface. So if you like that, stop sooner.

Some more notes:

I needed a dielectric to transport zinc ions and water alone will not do - maybe salty water, but I did not try that.

I saw somewhere on the internet (source of all wisdom) that a person could use the washing soda used in stripping the steel to make a solution. I tried this. One way to see if your setup is working is to monitor the amperage on your power supply and watch for the small bubbles. There were bubbles - and bubbles - and nothing else.

So I decided to ditch the washing soda water for clean in which I deposited about 2 tablespoons (use plastic spoon) of battery acid (sulfuric acid) - - do I really need to tell you not to do this?   Anyway,  now there was some action. At first I needed to set my supply at about 15 volts . BUT, by the time I finished 4 of the cans I had dropped the plating voltage to about 1.5V.  (that is one and a half volts)

​I suspect that the process formed zinc sulfate in the dielectric which encouraged the transfer of zinc to the plated surface. Had I maintained the 15 volt initial setting, I would have destroyed the can and the foils and - you know - sparks, fire, explosion. So if a person was to try this - and I know that you won't - careful monitoring is absolutely necessary.

​Zinc sulfate is a component of fertilizer, but I would not pour this stuff on the flowers. I dispose of chemicals responsibly.

Both chassis above. I could have plated the tube shields s well but they were not in bad shape. This is a good comparison of the DC and AC powered chassis.

Above and below are the before and after pics for the AC chassis

It should be noted that it is difficult to "throw" the plating into the corners of the chassis. And that I stock the original Zenith caps for those chassis that have lost them.

Thanks to Harry L. for a lot of those old caps.

Above and below are the before and after pictures of the DC powered chassis

Now, back to specific differences between the AC and DC powered radios.

The cabinet used for the 5-F-134 is different than the one used with the AC chassis. Note the 2 wooden brackets near the top of the cabinet. These are used to slide in a vibrator power supply which would have used a 6V battery as a power source. The brackets, along with some other modifications, make the battery radio cabinet heavier than the AC chassis cabinet. 

I had always thought that a radio with the brackets and without the vibrator supply was simply missing that supply. But, no, there is another configuration for storage batteries, a setup that would be familiar to users of mid 1920s battery radios.

On this DC powered chassis there are 2 plugs on the top surface. One is to plug in the vibrator supply (right) and one is for the dry-cell batteries (left). On a radio optioned for dry-cells there are 2 heavy jumpers installed in the vibrator supply plug - see above. In this configuration a cable was provided to plug into a dry-cell assembly, A, B and C cells.  So, on this chassis, the A supply was 2 volts and 2 volt tubes are used. The radio works well with about 140V on the B supply. A C- supply could limit current consumption of the final audio output tube.

​So it is perfectly normal to have a radio that does not use the top mounted vibrator supply.

Of course, while I was having all this fun the lacquer was drying.

It looks even better in person.

I have already started on some of the radios donated by Bill and some of those will be up next. Along with the old radios is some tube-type audio equipment, which I find interesting and useful. Though I have restored a lot of tube-audio gear, I have not posted much about them. Maybe we'll get into that next time.

Russ

 - -and thanks Bill for filling up my shop ;-)

 - or What to Listen to When the Power Goes Out

After all, we do live on a farm, or at least that is what the sign says coming up the drive - Tree Farm.
And, had anyone lived here prior to 1950 or even later, there would have been no commercial power. One of my neighbors still has his wind generator spinning in front of his house - I need make him an offer on that one.

The Rural Electrification Act of 1936 provided loans to extend the electric grid out to farms and rural communities. Like broadband internet connections today, there had been little interest in spending on infrastructure where few customers existed. Earlier, "farm radios" had to run on wind generators or batteries.  

Above: A Philco battery "jar" which would yield 6 volts DC when filled with acid and lead plates - until it was knocked over by the dog.

Above: A Parmak brand "DeLuxe" Model 525 manufactured by the Parker McCroy Co., which is the same company that built the fence chargers we use to keep varmits out of the garden. So they are still in business, still selling farm equipment.

You can usually tell a farm radio from the lack of a visible power transformer and the metal can that houses the noisy vibrator  power supply.  Noisy meaning - It  hums, or buzzes and it can generate some RF hash especially if the little mica cap across the output is bad - and they often are since this is a very rough life for even a mica cap.

All of this makes them less than ideal for collectors that wish to display a working radio. AND it is likely that the power supply no longer functions. Which causes some people to reason "Rather than fix the supply that runs on batteries - that I don't have, let's convert it to  - who knows - something else". These conversions usually result in a radio with missing or damaged parts, which was the case here.

Before I go on, You should know, that this is an uncommon radio. So much so that it does not seem to be correctly identified  on any of the usual internet ID pages. The name seems to be the source of confusion. Now that you know what it is, the schematic can be found in Rider's 13-2. 

To make things more interesting, the schematic shows the source voltage with reversed polarization (positive. ground). DON"T do that! While the syncroness vibrator supply will run with the input voltage reversed the filter caps across the output won't - nor will the radio.

Beside needing caps and resistors, this supply had half of the primary winding open. So it was 3/4 good - or entirely bad, which ever you prefer.

​Being basically lazy, I chose to only fix only the bad winding.

Yep, I used a socket to push the primary winding out of the secondary - this only works part of the time and heat may be required.

Fortunately the open winding was on the outside of the primary ( the outer 1/2 up to the center tap). Had the break been on the inside half, I would have rewound the entire primary.

The magnet wire did not show the typical corrosion or burns from overheating. Instead  the outer windings had become brittle, breaking many times as I unwound the failed 1/2 of the primary.

Now all I had to do was squish it back in there.

Before and After: The chassis got all of it's caps restuffed.

Chassis reassembled.

For a 5-tube battery radio, performance is pretty good on the broadcast band. The cabinet looks OK but it was never all that "DeLuxe".

Coming up: Back On the Farm - Again, a Zenith 5-F-134 in much worse shape.

This is a project rescued from the wood shed.

​I have mentioned the "wood shed" before. It is a small structure used to store wood and parts chassis and occasionally a radio that is so far gone, but interesting enough to avoid becoming firewood - at least for a while.

Received from a fellow collector, this is a Western Air Patrol 5 Tube Super from around 1935. The story on this one was that it had been placed on a table, outside, for a garage sale. Then it rained. Either that or someone had taken it for a swim or used it to decorate an aquarium.

In any case, the front panel was shot. fortunately, the rest of the cabinet was in relatively good shape which is unusual since it is constructed from solid mahogany. Most of the time a "solid wood" panel is going to warp when soaked in water. The entirely missing finish may have actually helped to avoid warping - or I just got lucky.

The knobs were all that was holding the front panel. Most of the veneer was missing. Fortunately, the escutcheon shown missing in the photo above, had been thrown inside.

This is a west coast radio manufactured by the Gilfillan plant in LA. It was built for Western Auto and carries the Western Air Patrol badge, which lights up in the left-side escutcheon. It is similar to radios built by Gilfillan and sold under their name or for retailers such as Herbert Horn (Tiffany Tone). Chassis were very similar as were the cabinets.

The chassis was pretty rusty but the speaker was intact.
Note the tone and band selector knobs on the back of the chassis.

The schematic and instructions on the bottom of the cabinet did not escape water damage.

This radio preforms pretty good - and that is about the only nice thing I have to say about it.

You would think that with so few parts (relatively speaking) that the lay-out and construction would have been easy. But, this radio is one of the worst I have ever seen.

At first I thought that it had been subjected to a lot of marginal repair work. The power transformer was askew, mounted using two bolts since the other two did not line-up. It might be a Los Angeles sourced replacement - the same color (grey) and shape as the originals that I have seen online. The leads did not line up with the original (design) penetration, but , the new hole was punched (flare on bottom side) rather than being drilled as you would normally find in a substitute style repair.

Solder joints were poor. two components leads were entrapped in solder blobs but were still loose. All of the connections to the chassis were poor. In the above picture, see the candohm that is attached by a blob to the chassis and only at one end. This seems to be the case on other examples of this chassis as well. Leads were wrapped but not trimmed.

The clamp on that filter cap was never going to hold it securely in place.

The tone control and the band switch controls exit the rear of the chassis. I would hope that this was due to a last minute production change rather than by design.

The mouse damage did not help. (How hungry does a mouse have to be to eat plastic?)

I broke the cabinet down to its individual panels before reassembling it. This did not take much effort since all of the glue joints had failed and the panels were only held together by  the original tacks and nails. The top was originally cut to shape but the side panels were constructed of several solid mahogany components.

This construction style, where a laminated front panel is affixed to a solid wood box is a characteristic of radios manufactured by Gilfillan at the time. Most cabinet manufactures did not design cabinets where laminated edge of the panel was exposed. Many of these cabinets have exotic veneers and intricate detail - but only on the front panel. There was some pretty wild router work done on the rest of the cabinet(s).

​Other Gilfillan examples below.

Above: A Gilfillan 6T version, discussed here: 
https://www.russoldradios.com/blog/one-of-a-kind

Above: A Gilfillan Allwave Super 6T 6C from around 1934.

Gilfillan was not the only manufacturer to expose the edge of the front panel. In an even worse application GE not only did this but extended the thin vulnerable edge beyond the structure in this M-51 pictured above. I consider this GE design a classic example of  Design By Comity with other questionable aspects beyond the often-broken front panel.

There was enough left of the original front to give me a pattern, I used 1/4" Baltic Birch plywood which is an improvement on the original. After the router, all I needed was veneer. I was able to reuse the two remaining strips where the escutcheons were but the rest had to be replaced. The original veneer pieces weren't really book-matched, more like sequential cuts. So that is what I did too. 

I decided to modify the gloss finish slightly, making it more of a semi, semi-gloss that I then buffed out.

I need to reposition the light bulb on the left to get a little more glow through the Western Air logo.

I derusted the chassis as best I could while preserving as much of the original plating as possible. Removing all of the rust and exposing bare steel would just encourage more rust and I am totally opposed to painting an originally unpainted chassis. One day, maybe I'll locate a nicer chassis. OR(!) if this Corona Virus - stay at home stuff - goes on for too long, maybe I'll get inspired to replate this one.

Works well with just the antenna pig-tail. Impressive with a real antenna.

​Russ

 - - all visits by groups and individuals as well as community support activities at the radio shop/museum have been suspended.

We hope that everyone remains healthy and safe.

If there is an upside to to being somewhat confined to home, I have tunneled into the "wood shed" and extracted a couple of basket-case projects one of which is the  the 1935 Western Air Patrol 5-tube Super pictured above. More later - -