Ugh ! That trim piece is AWFUL ! RUINS the whole thing ! For SHAME !! Box the ENTIRE set up & send it to me, & I promise I'll dispose of it so it'll NEVER defile anyone's eyes w/its hideous ugliness again...(grin) Lemme put it to ya this way-If someone offered me a brand-new, TOTL Mustang w/everything you could get on it, or one of your TVs, I wouldn't hesitate an instant. I'd grab the TV so quick it'd make yr head spin...

Yeah well, who wants a Rustang anyway! lol

That's why I like sites like this, we can always live vicariously through each other.

She-it, there's barely enuff metal on one of 'em anymore TO rust...(grin)

I use a spoon shaped dental tool from the back side of the brass trim piece. Place the front side of the brass trim against a hard flat surface like your kitchen counter top. Use the spoon shaped dental tool to press against the brass and move back and forth over the dent to to flaten out the dent against the hard counter top. This brass is very thin and is easily formed back into place with a small amount of pressure from the back side. This is a method similar to the way auto body mechanics straighten a dent using a dolly and a planishing hammer. The counter becomes the dolly and the dental spoon is your hammer (but you don't hammer you just apply pressure and slide the spoon back and forth)

I was able to almost completely remove 2 small dents with this methodology, and you have to look very closely now to find them.

Good Luck!

Nice! Nice! Nice!

Thanks, Wayne! very soon, we may be watching Oz on it...

Digikey package arrived today, that means it's time for a peaking coil party!

Operation 'I hate 21-CT-55 peaking coils' was a success, but it remains to be seen if the new ones will do what they are supposed to.

Slowly powered the chassis on the variac (how did I ever troubleshoot without one?!?), and only got 20 volts of B+....

Predictably, both of the caps in the doubler are almost completely open leading to very low voltage. Jumpered one of them with a new cap, and got almost full voltage and a decent looking waveform out of the horizontal oscilator!

Now the recapping begins...

That leaves me with a lingering question though: why on God's green Earth would the PO have replaced almost all the caps in this thing, only to not replace the ones that matter most? I always begin with the power supply when it comes to caps, but it appears the opposite happened here.

It's alive!!!
 

Muhahaha, there are signs of life!

:banana:

Good news, keep at it!

Almost too easy!
 

It lives.

:banana:

amazing .wonderful ... wonder when she was last on...congrats !!!!

Oh. Em. Gee.

Nice work, man.

Phil Nelson

This set was in the collection of Danny Gustafson, who had many of the sets he owned restored by Dave Johnson. That may explain why it came up so easily.

Very nice!

That is my belief as well, Steve. Most of the lytics had previously been replaced, except for the PS ones I just did.

Thank you, everyone. This set will be very enjoyable, I plan to own it for a very long time. I ran into a little problem last night where it would received color, but the luma channel was d-e-d DEAD. For some strange reason, the 2nd video tube plate was at 0 volts and I couldn't figure out why. I disconnected the parallel coil and resistor going to the matrix and it popped back up to normal showing luma bars on the scope, and when I reconnected it was working. It's still working as of this morning, so it's some kinda phantom or self induced gripe. Probably dislodged a bead of solder or something.

Anyhow, the raster is slightly tiled so next up is screen geometry and convergence.

Thanks, Mal. I knew you most of all were waiting to see this. :thmbsp:

Oh-OH - now all the neighbors will want to come over & watch Bonanza!

Don't know if I've said it yet, so-
AH HATE Yew !! -Yosemite Sam, Esq. (grin)
Seriuosly, EXCELLENT job...

Yep!

As for the conversation we had concerning the coils: I ended up buying ferrite core inductors from Digikey to replace all the old ones, despite your advice to stick with phenolic cores. It seems to work pretty well though, so I don't think I'm going to mess with it. Reason being is coils that are close to original in design with correct core material ect are hard to find, and I didn't feel much like going through 3 different companies to get them all.

Good thing is I bought 2 complete sets of inductors for this chassis in case something went wrong, so if anyone needs a bag of inductors to do a complete replacement job I have them. They are all marked for where they go on the chassis, to make the task a little easier. If you guys would like, I can post up the Digikey parts numbers and quantities so you can order for yourselves. Meantime, I'm going to post the set of coils I have in the classifieds. Hopefully someone needs them.

Congradulations!

You're on the home stertch.

Tom C.

I restored lots of sets for Danny. This was not one he ever had working.
The 21CT55 he watched was the toated mahagony set that was sold years ago.
To my knowledge Danny never turned this one on. I don't know who he
bought it from.

Awesome! I gotta come see it now!!

I'm about to make a big cap order which will include parts for my 21CT55. I'd really like those part numbers so I can put the peaking coils on order too (without going to the work of specking coils out myself).

I'm also trying to find info on what to use for series resistors to compensate for the lower resistance of the silicone I plan to replace the selenium rectifiers with.

Edit: found the info here: http://www.videokarma.org/showpost.p...22&postcount=9

I have the CT-100 coil list around here somewhere, whoch should be identical or pretty damn close. Keep in mind that those little white inductors have a different Q than the modern replacements and that can have an effect on performance.

I'll go look through my file cabinets when I get home.

As for your second question, I have to answer that with a question: do you plan on running the set right off a wall plug, or do you plan to only run it on a variac or Sola at say 115 or 117 VAC?

I highly recommend you hold the line voltage to 115 or 117 volts whenever running the set, and calculating the new dropping resistors for 115 or 117 volts.

You can, however, calculate the new droppers for whatever the line voltage is in your neck of the woods, say 122 VAC or whatever.

Small changes in line voltage creates a larger swing in B+, and the 21-CT-55 flyback already has a tendency to overheat and burn up. Whatever you do, make sure the droppers are sufficiently sized, and the horizontal section has been completely checked before moving on to other areas of the restoration. I'd hate to see your fly smoked from B+ that was a touch too high.

A few hours ago I found Nick's coil list and edited my post to reflect that.

I've got a 1KVA VRT isolation trans waiting for it. I may put a variac in series to set the line voltage if I don't like what the VRT is putting out. The mains voltage here varies a bit so most tube sets end up run off a VRT anyway.

It will be a while before I get to working on or finishing this set. Plan is to order enough parts for several sets (some of which may be done first), plus replenish my cap stocks to nominal quantities, as a winter stock up. I'm seriously considering restuffing all the caps in the 21CT55 which is going to take time as is checking everything over before power up. As with any early color set with an unobtainium flyback there are going to be a lot meters on it for the first power up with the H out tube connected.

I don't restuff as I feel there are few, if any sets, truly worth the effort. To each his own though...


About the inductors, the original white ones are obviously the best fit electrically. Check them and any that aren't open, leave. Some more may open during the restoration, but if any survive, they're worth keeping in my opinion given my experiences with my CT-100 (now John's).

Not sure what troubles you had, but this is my Merrill after total inductor replacement with the new ones from the list I put together. Looked pretty good to me.

http://miniman82.mysite.com/images/CT-100/IMGP5210.JPG

Crappy picture and there’s a hint of a drive line, but the color was stunning.

You should get one of these for each of your sets.

http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/...e.php?id=35747

(see thread: http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/...?f=15&t=209410)

.

That's just a rebadged Sola CVT, and it can't supply the necessary current to a 21-CT-55 anyway. The Colorvolt came out in the late 60s and was limited to about 3 amperes, so about 350 volt-amperes of apparent power.

A CT-100 draws just a hair under 500, I think the 21-CT-55 is about 540 or so. A CTC-4 draws 375 watts, the CTC-7 and 9 chassis are in the vicinity of 360 watts. A nice thought, but not really practical for any 50s roundie. A nice 750 VA or 1k VA unit is superior.

I sort of do....I don't have that exact model that turns it's self on and off, but I've got 4 outboard CVT/VRT units (2 250VA units, a 500 and the HEAVY 1KVA unit), and I've been using my VRTs with remote switched outlets...So in the end the function is similar only I don't have to get up to turn it on and off. :D

:rockon: