[Tom Albrecht]

Thanks for all the advice on getting the black crud off. I looked over all of the above, and ended up using the following procedure which worked well:

1. Heat the edge of the glass with a heat gun, gently prying the glass up with a screwdriver and inserting little spacers as I proceeded along. It didn't take much heat -- perhaps about 100-120 degrees F was enough to get things apart. Whole operation took less than 5 minutes to get the glass off.

2. Used a razor blade to get most of the crud off the glass. No problem. A little residue left behind was easily removed with paint thinner and a rag.

3. I didn't have any mineral spirits on hand, but tried paint thinner on the crud on the mask side. I found it is a very marginal solvent for the crud, and using paint thinner alone would have taken a very long time and a lot of rubbing (mineral spirits might have done better). What worked very well was to wet the surface with paint thinner, and then use a razor blade to carefully scrape the crud off, rewetting things as material was removed. This is probably much safer than trying it dry. The paint thinner softens the crud slightly, and more importantly, lubricates the surfaces and the razor blade, so you have a nicely lubricated sliding interface for scraping the crud off. This step took maybe 15 minutes, finished up with rubbing with a cloth wet with paint thinner.

All clean, and no scratches.

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On the decal subject: On previous radios and TVs I have restored, I apply the decals between coats of clear finish. The result looks perfect, with not a hint of visibility for the decal film. I have not found it necessary to apply the decal with the clear finish wet. I simply let it dry, and apply the decal using the usual water float method with a tweezer. After the decal dries in place, the next coat of clear finish can be applied. A few coats over the decal with light sanding in between gets rid of any trace of a hump from the thickness of the decal film.

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