CT100 S/N B8002567 Lives!
 

I thought I'd install a thread here about the CT100 I picked up from the ETF
two weeks ago. The restoration log thread is in the technical forum.

This morning was the big one! I installed the yoke and purity coil
on the CRT, and put the chassis in the cabinet, and attached wires.

At 8:10 this morning I turned it on. No nothing. I hooked my scope
up to the set attached to the red CRT drive ... noise only. I thought
maybe it needed a signal, so I turned on my RF generation system.
Still no nothing. I tried brightness , contrast, and screens, no nothing.
I tuned around and didn't find a TV signal ... but a bit of noise appeared
on the scope and a bit of blue light on the TV! A quick change in AGC generated more blue. First picture, 8:19 AM. Still no signal on scope.

http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1406738069

My Sony Watchman showed
no signal either: the video to the modulator was plugged into the DVD player,
not the STB. Fixing that resulted in a picture on the Sony.
Tuning various channels on the CT100 found Ch. 10 on Ch. 13
(I had set the knob wrong). This was at 8:27.

http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1406738069

The progress from there is shown in the pictures below, just
adjusting the full set of controls available on the front and
the focus.

http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1406738474

The vertical hold was off.

http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1406738474

The fine tuning was off.

http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1406738474

The images being sent from the station were rather, ah, odd ...
the 55 inch LCD TV looked only a little less strange. Yes, it was that green.

http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1406738474

All it took to get a good picture was a teeny adjust of Hue.


Oh yes... I forgot to make sure the audio was working before installing
the chassis in the cabinet ... its dead, so I'll eventually have to remove
the chassis and fix it.

That's rapid progress. It'll probably slow down a lot from here. But that
last picture was actually watchable.

Doug McDonald

Nice work. If you have a youtube acct would be nice to see it working.

:thmbsp:

What fun to see the picture shape up by stages. You seem to have plenty of R, G, and B -- now, to get them in all the right places :)

Nice work.

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

Those are some really brilliant colors. Kind of magical seeing on of those come back to life. :thmbsp:

WOW! good work, very impressive!
:beerchug:
jr

The brilliant colors were just adjustment to get a nice picture.
They are not real. Later tests determined that the control settings
were well off normal, so something was amiss. Chassis repair needed.

At this point I return to the repair/restore thread over in
the forum for that. The culprit has been found.

Great success! THANKS for posting the pics. I am always excited to see another vintage color set come back to life. Just the way I am, and have been since I "discovered" color TV in the 50s! :yes:
All the best for you and your CT-100!!
Kevin :D

Great news, and congratulations for bringing another CT-100 back to life!

Nice work.

Vintage Color TVs have always scared the heck out of me. So, hats off to a better man than me.:smoke:

Looks good ! ! !

That looks very nice. I have to be honest that I never knew about the CT-100 until I started hanging out here and over on ARF. I doubt that I will be able to own a CT-100 because they are so rare and expensive ... but it would be nice.

As a kid, I was very impressed when they came out with rectangular color kinescopes. But as many, as I age (66 now) I have come to appreciate "antiques" much more than before. I have a CTC-9 in queue.

Again:

Nice work!

Thanks for taking the time to share!

Hope we see more!

Congratulations, especially on the CRT!!!

That is some awesome work! Good luck with it. :smoke:

Chris

I'm in Love... ANOTHER one lives ! How KEWL is THAT ?!?

Having brought one of these back to life recently myself, I am very impressed! Nice work.

Thank you for preserving history step by step.
I'm also relieved I dint need to be the one to do it - the pressure would be too much!

It now receives real OTA NTSC on Ch. 39 ... installing a UHF strip is easy
and we still have that one LP station.

I'm wondering about the cabinet. Mine is in good shape overall, but the
bottom part is bad. See the picture on Radiomuseum.org, though mine
is not as bad, as only the speaker slats and the very bottom front part
are bad.

BUT ... WHAT ARE THEY? For all the world it appears to be photofinish.
Its flaking off in very very thin splotches, leaving bare wood. Could this
really be toner and varnish? I didn't think that "flaked" off.

As to refinishing ... I found some shelf liner paper at Walmart.com that
is close and I'm going to stick it on. The next owner can refinish it and
risk damaging the CRT.

Doug McDonald

Go to the tech restoration forum for actual OTA Ch. 39 NTSC pictures.

Thanks to Dave A for the UHF tuner insert.

The CT-100 cabinet was finished with toning lacquer and clear lacquer (not varnish). 99.99% of old radio/TV cabinets were done in lacquer because it dries very quickly.

Flaking lacquer is not unusual when a cabinet has been exposed to moisture and temperature extremes. Many CT-100 cabinets (including the one shown at radiomuseum.org) also show some color fading from exposure to UV. The original color was quite reddish. If you look at the photos of my refinished cabinet at http://antiqueradio.org/RCACT-100Television.htm , you'll get an idea of the color. If you disassemble your cabinet and inspect the finished areas that were shielded from UV, you'll also see the original color.

Contact paper sounds a little odd, but if that looks better to your eye, nobody's going to stop you. If your finish is already flaking, it may pull off some more if/when you remove the paper in the future. If you do want to remove a piece of contact paper, pull it slowly and horizontally to the cabinet surface (not at a right angle, which may pull off more flakes and possibly leave adhesive residue).

There's no harm in leaving the cabinet alone for the time being. I would definitely not slop on Howard's Restore-a-Finish, stain, etc., in an attempt to even out the color. If in the future you decide to take the cabinet to a pro refinisher, it would be better for them to start with a clean slate, not a cabinet partly soaked in some random goo from Home Depot.

Just my $0.02.

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

The areas that are flaking are so bad that contact paper will
pull it ALL off if removed. Blowing on it removes much of it.

The adjacent areas that are NOT flaking are stuck tight, such
that a test in an obscure area with duct tape didn't pull
the finish off.

I don't know if you can tell from the pictures, but it
is very red all over. Its actually in really
good shape. While showing "crazing" all over, that's
about it. There very little differential fading. All I used on
it was a damp cloth and that was enough.

I was thinking, however, of putting museum hanging tape
(which uses a very removable water based adhesive) on the set
and sticking the contact paper on that.

That museum tape sounds like a good bet.

I don't recall seeing photos of your cabinet. Perhaps they are in the other thread. Anyway, yeah, they are pretty red, compared to most old cabinets.

Phil Nelson

I'll post pictures. Original and with the contact paper.
This sticks so badly I didn't bother with museum tape.

I had the exact same damage to my CT but it was from a small flood at the dealers showroom in 1959. 45 years later I got the set and just did a sanding and a Minwax mahogany stain layered to match the upper color and some spray varnish to finish. No, it is not toning lacquer but it works. About one hour to fix. No one is going to find it down at toe level and it looks great.

Well, that's quite a difference. The rest of the cabinet is so nice, it makes me think the bottom was water damaged. The contact paper is good enough to pass a casual inspection, anyhow.

If you do decide to go further, remember that lacquer (not varnish) is your friend. It's more easily reversible if you want to redo your first attempt or you later decide to give the cabinet the Full Monte. The worst choice of all would be polyurethane; you won't get that off with anything short of a belt sander.

Phil Nelson

Reviving this thread.

The shelf paper peeled off. I still have 95% of the roll, but the stickum on it is
going bad too. So .. I decided to try double sided duct tape, in small patches

I wanted to verify that it would come off. So I tried some on fresh wood. Yes,
it comes off. Perhaps a bit of residue, by smell test. I tried the best remover
for tape stickum, ethyl acetate, and it worked perfectly. Acetone works too,
but needs several tries.

The set is presentable once again. But it lasted 6 years.