Cart is good will have to get a new needle. TT operates normally, just dirty as heck, but seems to be coming clean with no corrosion. removed platter bearing, will repack. normal stuff lube everything that moves. This one is going to be a record turnaround time from pickup to ready to use. Easy to become my favorite due to the ultra cool styling.

all back together, Its missing the blue lateral adj, I am going to look around and see if I have a spare, the bracket is there, but the screw adj is MIA.

The TT works smoothly but I will have to do a re-tread on the idler wheel, its not gripping well enough to cycle thru the tone arm sequence, I am pretty sure its just slipping, the rubber was not very pliable.

the free floatiing cart holder needs a new felt (it actually rides on the record).

the TV switch turns off the amp when the TV is one. I can defeat this by just pluging in the amp directly into the power line, bypassing the TV chassis socket. that way I can use the aux input (tape) for the DTV box, but I will still have to disable the speaker cut out that disconnects the speaker when the TV is on. I really prefer using the stereo to drive the TV audio, I dont know why zenith and RCA did it this way, magnavox was better in that they used the stereo amp for TV (mono of course but still...)

I will do it in such a way as to be easy to reverse.

Depending on what shape it's in, if it's just dried out, soaking it in some glycerine for a day or two will do wonders to rejuvenate rubber. I've done it with a couple of direct-drive tape drives for some of my older PCs.

If that doesn't work, maybe you can flip it around? I used to charge $10 for that service back when I was still repairing VCR's on a daily basis, it was pure profit.

some photos, oh and where do I get glycerine?

more photos.

there is still a slight misconvergence, I just ran out fo time, did not hookup the cross hatch gen.

I dont follow the flip it around?

Oh and I forgot to mention, the stereo FM separation sounds like its working fine. I will normally would use my small stereo transmitter to test, but again ran out of time, the OTA stuff seemed to be working. I will have to go play the rock station and wait for some led zep, or maybe queen bohemian rhapsody to come on, those are good test for separaion.

You should be able to get glycerin at just about any drug store. It's often sold as a moisturizing agent for dry skin or numerous other skin conditions.

It's a fatty acid, and quite friendly to rubber since it is not highly polar like an alcohol. (also non toxic!). It soaks in quickly and basically restores the flexibility of the wheel.

I think he meant take it off and turn it upside down. In a lot of my tape drives, the top half of the rubber capstan/idler are pressed agressively against the plastic roller in the cartridge, while the other half is not... if you flip it upside down, you can use this "unworn" half without issue. It may not apply to turntables though, since the whole wheel is usually in contact.

If you do have to re-tire, sometimes a single layer of heat-shrink can work really well, if the rubber you're covering is still a smooth surface - it will provide a new gripping surface without costing too much.

I will check out the drug store.

I have some square oring material that I have used in the past. I freeze the idler, chuck in a small lathe, turn down about 1/8, but the square o ring on, hit the inside joint with some CA glue, freeze it again, back in the lathe, the final sand it with an emory board. works pretty well.

ctc-16 combo
 

Looks beautiful Dave, that CRT looks pretty good, did you say it was weak? Looks like it has some life left in it. Let us know what youre going to do with the cataract problem, ive got an FJP sitting in a tub of water for over a month now and so far, nothing...

I will wait for a warm day, take it outside, see how things go, maybe try the hot wire trick. Not going to do the heat lamps thats forsure.

I am in the middle postion on the bias. it takes about 2 min to come up to full brightness from stone cold.

and yes it tested very weak, but comes up to just in the green if you leave it be for a couple minutes.


was just playing around with it some, I think the RCA roundies make some of the best yellows even by todays standards (forget you quattro).

UHF checks out, was alble to pick up the LP local station with just a small loop antenna.

One of these days I would like to try DXing for OTA broadcasting in Analog.

cool link
http://books.google.com/books?id=NVM...epage&q&f=true

I had some tong oil that was in my resto box, decided to try some of that, wow what a nice way to make old wood cabinetry pop:yes:

I really like the tong oil, its very controlable (you pretty much cant go wrong). I never have had any luck with ureathanes, varnish or shellacs. I aways end up with some defect in the finsh, with the oil, you just wipe it off and let it dry.

going to put a few more coats on (have to wait at least a day or two between IIRC). I am hoping I can mask off and paint match the one area of the mask. Its an edge and should present no problems as far as matching (the hard edge should make that easy)

tung oil is great!i use it exclusively on my restorations.i dont care for poly at all.i use lacquer sometimes but tung oil is my favorite.if you cut it with some mineral spirits it make a spit coat and really shines.your crt looks decent enough to keep.the roundies produce some fine yellows as well as reds.nice piece and i am happy it was saved

yea this one turned out really nice. I just out sitting in the garage and I got some whole lotta love come on to test the stereo MPX, and Later Queen Bohe Rhapsody just like I wanted, very good separation, I dont even mind that the power amp is SS, I can at least say its Germanium vs Silicon :yes:

I tried the glceryin on a old idler I had lying around, the rubber was more like hard plasic, after letting is set in the lotion all day with no noticable effect I decided to try brake fluid, heard of that before but did not want to try it on a ilder I needed so this one is the test case.

I know I can do the lathe trick (heck I was even thinking of just turning one out of some alum and putting a V groove in it for an o-ring) add a ball bearing and it would be about as good as it gets, but that is a bit of over kill.

Not a big fan of these older TTs from zenith or RCA, I like the imperials MUCH better on my maggies.

THE HOT WIRE DOES NOT WORK ON THE RCA STYLE!!! only the green zenith soft rubbery type.
Let it bake in the hot sun face up for a few hours and then rock it while lifting. If it doesnt come off I would put it back in. You know how easily these old crts crack and go to air. They are very fragile.

Simpsons look real good. I dont see much color bleed or anything.

I tweeked the focus, looks even better now.

I have put about 4 coats of tung oil on it, 0000 steel wool between coats, looks great. I also used the 0000 on the metal pull knobs and tuner handles, cleand up the gunk that was left, very nice and shiney. The TT seems to be working better the more I use it, for a while there it was having a tough time on the cycling but lately it works fine. I stole a needle from another RCA that I had a new diamond needle. Sounds excellant. Every now and then there is a miss fire and the record drops the arm lifts and just settles down and then turns off. I can see the little sizing lever is not working right when that happens. My guess is it just needs more use to continue to loosen up.

I tried the brake fluid on the spare idler several days, no change. going to just retread it.

touched up the purity, had a tough spot to work out, did another degauss, think I got it. used a dot/bar/crosshatch gen to touch up the convergence, just a tiny bit on the dynamic was needed. Roundies seem so much easier to get it right for me anyway. The CRT seems to be getting better if that is possible, I reset the bias to the top spot on the switch, still have plenty of brightness, tracks well etc....

I will get some more pics in a bit. the only thing I have to becareful of is the purity rings are very loose. I may try some toothpics to hold them in position.

I just know its going to look great when I get the cat off.

here are some after convergence. there is still a slight purity issue along the top.

I am going to give it a rest and try again later. I could not get the red cloud very small in the center, maybe just could not move the yoke back far enough.

since it was so large it made it difficult to see how well I was centering it.

Nailed the purity, re did it, this time I was able to center the red cloud and get the normal sets of 3 around it. Slid forward, lookin good now. I will check it again when some B&W programing comes on, that seems to show it the best.

looks good!nice rca roundie color.another beautiful set saved!

roger that, this one has certainly taken top billing in my inventory of sets. May motivate me to get off my tukas and make that cabinet up for my other CTC16.

They just dont make them like this anymore, its such a shame to hear about one that gets trashed. I see a lot of consoles where the TV has been ripped out, and a BPC put in or just turned into a liqure cabinet.

I dont get why people dont do the tinest bit of research to find out that the set is fixable.

I had a conversation the other day with a younger person, when I told her the CRT could make a very nice pic, she was skeptical, I explained that indeed some CRTs made late in the 90's may have been garbage (by design IMHO to help sell the upcoming flat screens) but these old sets make for a very nice picture when setup right. Plus I could care less about most current programming (except for sports) so I dont really need all the whiz bang aspect ratios etc...

anyway enough rambling got to go get ready for RTV tonight.

a few more. I have tried it at as low as 105vac, loses some vert height. 110-115 is fine and where I would like to operate it just to reduce heat.

these are after the purity setup

pictures are great.cataract is marginal and picture is outstanding.

ctc16-combo
 

Its a beautiful thing Dave. I cant tell you what a pleasure its been watching you do this, and the picture looks great.

I think we need a "the stockholm" fan club....:yes:

Good job there Dave. Great trip down memory lane.
:music:
Bill(oc)

make a nice large close up of the turn table idler whell...may have one

[QUOTE=DaveWM;2996819] They just dont make them like this anymore, its such a shame to hear about one that gets trashed. I see a lot of consoles where the TV has been ripped out, and a BPC put in or just turned into a liqure cabinet.

I dont get why people dont do the tinest bit of research to find out that the set is fixable. /QUOTE]


Back in the day when VCR's came out, the older sets were not compatible with VCR's because of the slow horizontal time constant. It was a tedious job to change that. People would not spend the funds on an old set.

...

you are right andy, I just like to make sure its working. I still has the orig diode pack, and I think there maybe one of those cap tube caps. I just cant remember now. If there is a white cap it will get replaced, but I will leave the Se diode pack in as long as its working.

It will prob be a while before I pull the CRT for cat removal. Waiting for warmer weather. Around here the summers get so Hot I am betting that a few hours in the sun will allow it to pop right off.

NOS 6C9 in the tuner seems to have resolved my FM distance issue. There is one station that I like that was just not quite making it (the MPX would drop out depending on where you stood). The new tube does not have that issue.

I did not bother to test just did a sub.

loving this set, but something I dont understand, If I watch it everyday, the CRT comes up to full brightness in what would be considered a normal time (about as long as it takes for the HV to come up), However, if I dont turn it on over a period of days there is a delay in full brighntess. The screen comes up but its quite dim, it takes a few minutes, but then back to normal.

Was wondering if anyone else has expereinced this? the CRT did test weak when I 1st got the set, I have not checked it since I got it up and running.

I am of course assuming its the CRT and not some other fault.

Probably cathode contamination. The contaminates settle on the cathodes after sitting a while, and take some time to burn off when you turn it back on.

The CRT might still be a bit de-activated from sitting. With use, they sometimes "wake up" a bit. Or, the CRT may be getting a little soft and needs time to warm up. I have one like that but the picture is great after about 5 minutes. The tube also tests good, but not as good as some of my other ones. Did you try the 8v heater method to wake it up?

Hey Nick, didn't mean to repeat what you said, we were posting at the same time:D

when I 1st tested it I did up the filament, not that much, just to see if I could get the emissions up, they did, but would not stay (left it there for maybe 1 hr) when returned. I would not even notice it if it was a daily driver, However I have not really spent any time to see how long it can sit idel before the problem popps up. I have a replacement CRT I plan to use that test very well, I just am on the fence with it since it produces a very nice pic other than this delay issue. I would not even replace it but for the bad cat that I want to get rid of. I may just do the cat and reuse it, I have a CTC 7 that could use the replacement CRT. Its not a dual anode but I figure it will work with maybe some tweeks.

Are you "on the fence" as to wondering if you should try to rejuvinate it or not? I agree that the CRT does seem to be on the "soft" side of things but if it's coming up on brightness and the tracking is good, nowadays that's acceptable.

Lately, I've noticed the hesitating of not rejuvinating tubes and sometimes even living with a brightner. Sure, we look at rejuvinating as the last resort but I believe rejuvination is better than the added stresses of using a brightner. And granted, if a brightner was there to begin with "depending" on how long that brightner was in use the tube may still be salvagable (or not).

Realizing that sometimes a tube can test poor and still produce a good picture, it is always better to see how it does after the set is up and running.

Things sure have changed with no Scotty around anymore!

I've taken various approaches to this. On my Zenith 5131/chassis 25LC30 the CRT will need cateract removal and I did check the tube and it's marginally ok. What I mean by "marginally" ok is that the guns all showed some emission but not all the same, weak with poor tracking. It's got life in it so I know that it will be a good canadate to leave until the set is operational and evaluate then. It will work just fine for producing a picture, and it may "wake itself" up in the process.

Another set that I'm starting on (57' B&W Zenith) had a brightner on it but the tube came up in emission on the tester, indicating some life even before letting it test for a couple hours. I did take my Beltron to this one and now it checks as new. I may have shied away from doing that but this was done as a last rush effort before Scotty shut down so he was my backup.

We've heard that a rejuvinated tube won't last long, picture won't be as good etc. but a CRT won't last very long on a brightner either and then theres no chance of resurrection with a rejuvinator at that point!

The Predicta in my Avatar is the original tube that I rejuvinated with my Sencore (before I got my Beltron) and it's been doing good. Now that I have my Beltron I use it for rejuvinating/cleaning and I like my Sencore for testing.

Dave, I don't want to hijack your thread and I can understand any hesitations where the tube is concerned as to what to do. If your tube continues to maintain the characteristics that it's showing, I'd bet it would respond quite well to a minimum rejuv/clean as your last resort.

oh no, no rejuv for me, my fence decision is to remove the cat of the soft tube and reinstall or just switch over to the strong tube. I would not dare do a rejuv unless it was nearly a lost cause, this is far from that. I may just de cat and use and save the strong tube for the CTC-7. I would like to see the strong tube installed in this set just to see how much faster/brighter it maybe, but if I go that far I could not see going all the way and installing it and saving the soft tube for the 7.

...

I've found that the "auto restore" function of the Sencore CR-70 is really good at waking up and tracking them without harm (when the 8v heater method isn't enough). I tried to hurt a crappy tube with it once and couldn't, not saying it can't be done but you really have to try to make it happen. It says hold the button and let it go through three cycles but I've found that one cycle is often just what you need. I had to do it on my CTC-9's red gun and that was 2 years ago and the tube still holds after sitting for a year and then I subjected it to hundreds of hours of use as of now. It tests really strong but still needs a few minutes to warm up if it sits for more than a week, so I guess maybe it's starting to get soft but man, what a picture!!