Restoring Firestone 4-A-20

[Reece]

Matt of matt_s78mn kindly sent me this radio just for the cost of shipping. I love radios that need a lot of work because you get to solve so many problems. First was a crop of tiny tiny black spiders that came with the set! I put it in a garbage bag with some paper towels soaked in starting fluid (ether) and sealed it up overnight. That got all but one (Super Spider!) that I found on the bench but I quickly blotted him/her out.



The cabinet was in rough shape but the chassis appeared to be all there. I decided to work on the cabinet first since this is an AC/DC set with no rare/expensive parts like a burned out power transformer to impede restoration, so I figured it would be easy.

The cabinet was wobbly and loose and some of the side veneer was coming off. The top had veneer damage and I considered repairing that but the plywood of the top was delaminating so I decided to make a new one. A couple of whacks inside with a hammer handle and the old top came off. I reglued the set in a number of places: I think you can see five clamps in one of the pictures.





I ordered some walnut veneer for it from Rockler so did not mount the top yet as it would be easier to veneer with the top loose. There are some control decals so I took pictures and notes on them and will make my own replacement ones. I stripped the topless cabinet and it looked eminently restorable. The speaker baffle board was delaminating so I made a new one from plywood and painted it black. The reverse paint on the glass dial scale had some big scratches and alligatoring in the paint so I cleaned the front of it and the back very carefully as best I could, scanned it, and put it away safely. I'll deal with making a reproduction later. To be continued...