Recaping a 1937 Zenith 6S299 - Videokarma.org TV - Video

GinoRoth · #1 12-09-2012, 10:59 PM

Last month I got an old Zenith Black Dial Radio (Model 6S299) from 1937. I had to rebuild a new cabinet for it because the old one was beyond repair. I had been looking at pictures of the old Westinghouse Columnaires and thought they were graceful looking and well designed. Zenith made consoles but nothing like the Columnaire so I decided to make one and I am attaching a picture of how the cabinet turned out. Over the last week I have been cleaning up the chassis and replacing all the capacitors and resistors. With each new one added, the sound returned and became stronger as I went along - until I came to the last item. I don't know what this is - it has the color bars of Red, Orange and Silver - only the 3 bars. the body is brown like a plastic or baklite. At first I thought it was an old molded capacitor of .023 ohms but when I replaced it with an orange drop the radio stopped working. Can anyone identify this thing and tell me what I can replace it with?

GinoRoth · #2 12-09-2012, 11:03 PM

ops - I sent a picture of another radio's dial, here is the correct picture of the part in question

Rayburn69 · #3 12-10-2012, 12:16 AM

That cabinet looks oustanding!!! Excellent wood working skills!-Ray>

jr_tech · #4 12-10-2012, 12:23 AM

Resistor :

1(brown), 2(red), 3 zeros (orange), 10% (silver) : 12,000 ohms 10% perhaps 5 watt (judging from the size). Beautiful cabinet work!
jr

GinoRoth · #5 12-10-2012, 12:43 AM

Thanks guys for the comments on the wood. I am happy with the way it turned out too. I used Birch and some white Maple for the stripes. I'm going to give this to one of my boys for Christmas - he likes tube stuff. And thanks Jr-tech for your answer, I had a suspicion that the first band may have included the case color and now you have put me on the right course. 5 watts sounds about right, this thing is about 2 inches long.

Reece · #6 12-10-2012, 05:50 AM

That cabinet is in the flavor of ultra-moderne which was going on in the thirties, turned out very nice. Does that have a top-firing speaker, with a hinged lid?

electroking · #7 12-10-2012, 10:38 AM

Did you measure that resistor? I would not be too surprised if it were within spec.
Nothing wrong with keeping an original part like this if it's good. Good luck with the
project!

GinoRoth · #8 12-10-2012, 12:07 PM

Hey Guys,

In answer to the last couple of posts, I mounted the speaker to one side of the cabinet as I wanted a hinged top for a small storage compartment. In one of my pics you can see the multicolored laminated bottom of that compartment. Since I was giving this to my son, I knew he had to have a place for an ipod. To allow charging, I have a surge protector inside the cabinet and that also has 2 USB jacks on it to charge an ipod and whatnot. Back to the speaker, I wanted the new grill cloth to mount flush with the outside so I cut a 1" wide ring from a large diameter pvc pipe and placed a piece of double stick tape around the outside diameter of that. Next, I took my new grill cloth and stretched it over the ring and then put that into the large circle hole that I made in the side of the cabinet. It was a snug fit held in place with some screws on the inside of the ring.

About that resistor, it was a little out of spec but I had to replace it because one of the leads broke off when I moved it out of the way to replace a cap. I soldered a new piece of wire to it but it will not hold. Funny thing, I dont see the value of this resistor listed on the Rider Schematic but I'm still new at this. I will keep trying.

radiodayz · #9 12-10-2012, 02:48 PM

Beautiful work, Gino! I'd love to see/hear it playing. Any way you could make a short YouTube vid?

GinoRoth · #10 12-10-2012, 08:36 PM

I can post a few more pics but the vid has to wait until I get some storm problems out of the way - no time for this project right now but I will make one as soon as I can.