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Old 05-14-2018, 11:24 PM
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Zsuttle Zsuttle is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Virginia Beach, VA
Posts: 159
Philco Model 70 Restoration w/Pictures

I was lucky to pick up this Philco Model 70 off of craigslist for a reasonable price from a family that had owned it since new.
70frontoriginal.jpg
First photos of the chassis indicated that it was well loved by the family, having been recapped in the 1950s or 60s.
70chassisundersideoriginal.jpg
I began removing the caps, which luckily had been placed on the original Bakelite blocks.
Rebuilding was fairly straightforward, though the blocks do break easily if pressure is applied to the sides when trying to remove the old caps.
Note for anyone rebuilding, one of the capacitors has a resistor inside
70undersiderecapped.jpg
I then made notes that the 80 rectifier and the 47 audio output tubes were bad and replaced them.

It seems most of the 70's suffer from an open coil or two, citing the early plastics as the culprit. Tons of people had previously published data on what gauge wire to wind with, making it relatively simple. I used 32 Gauge enameled magnet wire with 69 turns for the primary and using a piece of plastic to wrap the new wire around. Boy is hand rewinding fun!
70NewCoil.jpg

After I cautiously powered on the set, and used a short 6ft wire for the antenna. I was able to pick up stations with relative ease, though the volume pot needed to be cleaned.

Proceeding to the worst part, Someone had dumped lacquer all over the cabinet and let it run, It looked good from a distance, but it sure looked ugly.
I began stripping the finish off, not something I wanted to do, but the cabinet needed it.
70firstsand.jpg
Notably, the front panel had warped away from the cabinet causing all of the pillars to crack.

The right center pillar was completely missing the wood, with only the backing remaining. After a few test trials, I fabricated a piece of mahogany to match the arch and glued it in place. Someone had stained the backing so It would look OK from a distance, which can be seen in the first photo.

After a final cleaning, I began sanding the cabinet to begin for lacquer spraying. Although it was difficult to tell exactly how the original Philco Cabinet looked, I elected to go with some of the popular designs I had seen, though not original.

The final product came out after 3 coats of lacquer, a little bit of light sanding and a 4th final coat. I hand painted the darker edges around the radio and the base.
70finished.jpg

I had to rebuild the cutout for the speaker panel after mine disintegrated, using two picture frame mats glued to each other, tracing the pattern onto it. It's a pain to cut out, but well worth the effort.

I've yet to reinstall the chassis, namely for letting the paint dry, but I was too excited to finally put the speaker and new cloth in to wait till later.

This was definitely a fun project, though with the radio lacking the Automatic Gain Control, it can be quite annoying to tune, with the local stations overwhelming the more distant ones. Overall, a great project and another radio I hope someone can enjoy for many years to come.

~Zach
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