I just checked my 100 here in Wisconsin (Cabinet number 20) and it too is darker below the seam. My other two 100s are in California so I cannot check them for a while but if I recall they too are darker below the seam.

Steve

I never noticed it before but mine is also slightly darker below and beginning at the seam. I have Cabinet #951.

:) Makes me feel better reading that!

This is a great thread. I continue to learn a lot by reading the travails of other collectors. Thanks to everyone involved for making me less ignorant. Some day I may even tackle one of my color sets...

Happy New Year!

-- Dave Sica

Ditto.... I think everyone can say that....

I've been busy refinishing the cabinet for several weeks. In the future, I'll remind myself not to refinish things in the middle of the winter, since the drying time for every step is much longer -- even in our relatively mild California winters. Often had to set the cabinet outside in the sun to move things along!

http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1389904925

http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1389905245

Overall it came out pretty decent. I'm not sure the color is exactly right, although it's hard to know exactly what the original color was on these.

This was a labor-intensive cabinet restoration, with plywood and veneer repairs in addition to the usual refinishing. I'll give some more details about that below in another post.

Here are some shots of the work in progress:

1. Main cabinet ready to strip (front moulding and speaker grill slats removed):
http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1389906434

2. Front moulding and speaker grill slats ready to strip:
http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1389906434

Removing the moulding and speaker slats made stripping and sanding much more straightforward. Luckily, they came off easily without any damage.

3. This pesky gap in both of the top front corners caused me a fair amount of grief:
http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1389906434

First I tried clamping and gluing. It required so much force to close it up that it simply came apart again after unclamping. I settled on lighter clamping and gluing, which didn't really close up the gap, but would hopefully stabilize it. Then I filled it with wood filler and sanded back. Unfortunately, it still cracked open a little during subsequent finishing steps and required some rework. Came out reasonably OK, but not perfect.

4. Plywood repair for rear foot:
http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1389906434

This rear foot was badly damaged, so the original plywood was removed and replaced with new plywood. Although this picture shows some veneer remaining above the new plywood up to the groove, I later removed that as well, and put a single new piece of veneer in place from the bottom of the foot up to the groove, with only a vertical seam against the existing veneer.

5. Rear foot after plywood and veneer repair:
http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1389906434

6. Veneer repair for front foot (the plywood was still usable on this foot, with a little wood filler to fill in some missing gaps):
http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1389906434

You can also see above that there is substantial wood fill on the front of the front foot. They were badly rounded and beat up from this set being moved (or shall we say "dragged across the pavement by idiots") way too many times over the years.

7. All stripped and ready to stain:
http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1389907085

8. Stained and ready to reassemble:
http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1389907085

The stain I used was Zar brand "Dark Mahogany" followed by "Cabernet." The Dark Mahogany alone was not sufficiently red, and adding a coat of Cabernet got it to where I wanted it. I like Zar stains because they do not overemphasize the grain, giving a final appearance closer to the original stain + toned lacker used by RCA.

9. Masking in preparation for painting the gold stripe on the front edge of the front moulding:
http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1389907085

10. Gold strip painted using Rust-o-leum "Aged Brass" spray paint:
http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1389907085

In retrospect, I think "Aged Brass" isn't really dark enough, and I would suggest using "Antique Brass" (a little darker color also available) to get a closer match to the original.

11. Gold stripe done:
http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1389907085

Tom,

Looking really good. That one troublesome corner was probably warped and no amount of clamping & gluing would bring it back to true. I wish I had had the knowledge I have now when I refinished my CT-100 years ago. Much warmer here in So. Ca. this winter.

Best,
-Steve D.

Multiple coats of clear finish were applied. After a couple of coats, the following two steps were done.

12. Wall of hole on side of cabinet (for Focus and Convergence controls) painted with very dark brown paint to cover up the grain and plywood structure:
http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1389907522

13. Decals (Thanks, Nick!!) were applied:
http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1389907522

After more coats of clear finish, with sanding in between, the edges of the decal are almost invisible on the finished cabinet.

So there you have it... That's what's been keeping me busy for a few weeks (in addition to Christmas travel, job, and various radio and TV restoration projects for other folks on the side).

Now I can reassemble things and get back to work finishing up a few remaining electronics issues with the chassis.

Beautiful work Tom! It probably looks pretty close to what it did when it left the RCA factory.

Steve

Looking good!

Today's nit: there should be a small gold dot between OFF and VOLUME. The guy who made my decals accidentally omitted the dot; my refinisher added it back with a fine artist brush and gold paint.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

Hi Phil,

I probably won't bother with the gold dot, since I don't even have knobs for my front panel controls! I suspect my CT-100 will be known as "the knobless one." :)

On behalf of a number of people who have benefited from the decals you originally had made, thanks very much for making them available.

This looks really cool.

Just looking at the photos transport me to a time before I was born.

Life was so much simpler when this set was new.

Cabinet is done now, except for the brass frame around the safety glass, which I'm still contemplating what to do with. If I polish it, it's hard to get it back to the right "antique brass" color.

The set is reassembled and working reasonably well. After fixing a problem with the vertical dynamic convergence, I can get the convergence pretty close:

http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1390199103

Here's a closeup of the lower left area:

http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1390200291

As you can see, the bottom left area is not quite fully converged. The interaction between the vertical and horizontal dynamic convergence controls makes this all rather tricky. The convergence directions in both Sams and the RCA Service Manual offer only limited advice. One thing I notice is that although there are three horizontal convergence adjustments, the directions only mention two. The third, in the high voltage cage (at the top) has a big effect, but I didn't see any instructions on a procedure for adjusting it.

Does anyone have a clear understanding of what each of the three horizontal dynamic convergence adjustments really does? Any tips on further improvement of convergence?

The picture is pretty watchable now, although color tracking is marginal. Although all three guns test very good on my CR-70, the red gun does test a little weaker than the other two, and this becomes very apparent when adjusting the background, drive, and screen controls. The red screen is set at max (about 440 volts on the red screen), the other screens near minimum, the green drive is set at minimum, and no amount of fiddling with everything else can really get the tracking to be excellent.

Here's a screen shot where things look reasonable normal as far as color goes:

http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1390199103

You can age polished brass with gun bluing liquid from a sporting goods store. You can also buy proprietary stuff for the same purpose, but I don't know whether that has any real advantage.

I was shown how to do this by a guy with an antique lamp restoration business. The brass should be clean -- as in alcohol-wash clean -- and handled only with forceps until the aging is done. It's easier to do with small pieces that you can dip. For long pieces, I guess you would brush or spray it on. As soon as the brass reaches the desired shade, you wash off the solution.

That convergence looks pretty good. If there are secret tricks for making it perfect, I'd love to learn them. I don't think any of my old color sets has ideal convergence.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html