A new freebie!!!
 

This is one of those things that "never happen", but they seem to come by me more often than not :)

Got a call from a guy that I gave an old console cabinet to, from a set that was too far gone both cosmetically and electronically to reasonably restore. Turns out he does house cleanouts, and came across what he described as "an old RCA TV with double doors in the front". Nobody wanted it, and he thought he'd do a good turn for me and offer it to me. Why sure! :)

Figuring that it was most likely a common-as-water KCS40 chassis RCA, I went over to see it, and what to my wondering eyes do appear but this CTC-12 that someone hung ugly window shutters on!!!

Everything intact, ZERO cataract evidence, with the back and a clean chassis!!

Apparently he comes across these sets "all the time" and has a REALLY hard time getting rid of them because of e-recycling guidelines. I gave him $20 and thanked him for saving it for me, and told him I'd buy whatever he came across.

Picture when I first got it, and a couple shots of where it is now.....wedged in my living room until I can get a friend to help me carry it down (my 15 year old son was pooped helping me get it this far ;) ).

Turns out the picture tube has absolutely perfect emission too! There were RCA service tags laying inside the back, the latest was from October 2, 1973.

Now I've done literally dozens of black and white restorations, but only a half dozen or so color sets, and all of those had already been powered up at least once before I touched them, so they weren't complete unknowns as this set currently is.

My thinking on this one is test the tubes and bring it up on a variac, but I want to give this set a good fighting chance. Do I do a total recap first, or what's opinions on what I should do from here with it?

thats easy, so a soft start, no recapping needed most likely.

I do this

pull horz out and vert out tubes
monitor the B+ (look for a 400v b+ on the chroma board, easy to get at)
monitor the AC input voltage and current.

variac to 10vac to the plug, watch the DC voltage, should be about 3-4 times as high as the AC at the plug, also note the current should be nill.

after about 10 min go to about 30vac this time feeling the can caps for heat and seeing if the DC keeps going up and the current should still be low.

get to about 90vac if all looking good with low current and high B+ the pop the HO and VO back in, hook up a current meter to the HO cathode lead, hook up a HV prob and go for a full power start.

pull the plug if the HO current starts to go north of about 220ma, there is something wrong if its there and no HV.

if all goes well dip the eff coil with the HO meter still attached and call it done.

keep an eye on it of course and see how it goes, check the heat of the fly after about 15min of running (power off of course).

the most likey issue will be vert stability. those caps in the feed back loop of the vert multiplier live a harsh life.

Nice set for $20.00. Best of luck with it, and please post some pictures when you get it operating.

I got a 2-tone metal cabinet tv from a house cleaner-outer-guy he put it on CL
thinking it was too different looking to just throw out..... Maybe regular contact
with those guys would be a good thing.... Maybe even giving them a "keep yer
eyes peeled for" wish list kinda thing would be a good idea to do.... Better than
just letting them get tossed....

Nice cabinet style on that set, by the way....

.

It was kind of ironic how it happened. I ended up parting out a set and felt guilty as hell for doing so....but it had a blonde cabinet painted brown, veneer totally missing on top, blown resistors on the chassis and a questionable flyback and yoke. Had to let discretion be the better part of valor and make a decision that it wasn't worth my or anyone else's time to bother with.

Saved the picture tube and other parts, and listed the cabinet on Craigslist as a freebie. A guy came and got it and was going to refurb it into a fish tank. Ugh.

The guy, was THIS guy. Since he already now HAD a place for his fish tank, he didn't want to cut this one up. Had I not parted that other set, THIS one would now be a fish tank.

Truth is stranger than fiction, sometimes.

Oh, and he and his partner now have my business cards. They do home cleanouts. One of the kinds of people we ALL dream to get to know....

My best freebee was from a neighbor that was looking after an elderly man. he passed away and they had to clean out the house.

I got a nice sylvania 23v all tube set. got a cheap CRT from a donor set from CL for 5$ or thereabouts, it was a VERY good crt.

between those two deal I have prob one of my best looking and performing sets.

If you run across a sylvania from the late sixties don't pass on it.

I'm truly amazed in how often TVs & radios have "Found ME" over the years. Sets that in reality, I should have never had a snowball's chance of finding. But, you start letting it be known that you are a guy who loves this stuff, & you start getting calls all the time...

you took off the doors?! :nono:

In many places, those are a sign of status and power... Like a higher class person owns the TV set. :tears:

Y'know, I considered for a moment leaving them on as they've been a part of the set for a LONG time. But they were home window shutters, even the hinges had TAIWAN marked on them.

If others think I should go grab them out of the trashcan and stick them on, you could "bully" me into it ;)

It's in the basement shop as of last night, and I'll start testing tubes shortly....

I'd leave them off. Keep the set as original as possible. Very nice find. Hope you score some more sets!

Really nice find. I agree that the set should be restored as original, sans shutters. Will follow your progress with interest. Brightened up your last photo a bit.

Best w/your "new" color tv.
-Steve D.

Looking good so far.....with the HO and VO tubes pulled and the set running for about 40 minutes, everything is nice and cool and I'm *listening* to the CBS morning news on the set which is running at about 90VAC currently

:)

I'll play more later today.

Thats a great score for $20 bucks and a perfect CRT congratulations :thmbsp:

Darn fine score for anyone who's into those.
I second that.

I agree about the doors, leave 'em off. I'll leave a modification in place if it's non-intrusive and I consider it part of the set's history. For example, the original owners of my 1988 Zenith console put a small knife switch on the back panel for antenna selection, and I only took it off long enough to tighten a couple of loose terminals. Besides, it's better to be asked about an add-on switch than screw holes that I can't patch properly. ;)

A
 

Looking good!!!

This pic was taken at a calibrated 100 VAC. The picture gradually filled out more, but started slowly increasing and decreasing in size. Shut it down.

The whole goal in the power up was to see if I have something worthy of a rebuild, and I think I do :) .

Here's a video of what the set was doing. Anyone seen this before? Bear in mind that it's got all its original caps. Going to pull the chassis and start a rebuild this week......

The screen really wasn't as blue as it looks in the video....the camera angle was bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzOo...ature=youtu.be