Dumont RA113 "Burlingame" restoration

[bandersen]

A few weeks ago Phil Nelson put me in touch with the owner of this nice Dumont RA113. He and his brother grew up with this set and he really wanted to get it restored to working condition.

Although I've plenty of other projects, I agree to take a break from them and work on it. They pulled up in front of my place with it yesterday afternoon.

I removed the chassis while it was out on the curb to lighten the load but the cabinet was still quite heavy.

The set had been kept inside it's whole life and is in very good condition. The finish looks very similar to my blonde Sentinel so it's probably also made from Korina wood. As best they can remember it is working when retired from service.

There's a ding on both cabinet sides from the door handles whacking into them. Seems they should have used a little bumper like on Zenith portholes.


The CRT had been replaced with a Westinghouse 17BP4B back in the late 50s and the set saw very little use afterwards. Even so I was surprised at how quickly it showed emissions well into the good with excellent cutoff and rock solid life test.


The tube chart shows a 17AP4. The back does not have a cutout for the CRT but luckily the 17BP4 just fits.


The chassis is rust free and quite clean


I see a few replaced caps but it's mostly original.


It also appears that a HV anode lead has been spliced it. Perhaps the original 17AP4 had a different type of HV cap ?