[jshorva65]

Well, I've just scored my first 621TS, but in a kind of "accidental" way. This one started out as a client's set, but arrived for its Evaluation in pretty rough shape including such a bad case of "Brown Rot" (including a "necked" 7DP4, and just look at what happened to the guts of the Tuner) that it literally took over two years to get replacements for all of the damaged parts. Actually, it was White Rot, not Brown Rot. At least Brown Rot can be treated by jumping through some hoops and collecting on Insurance to cover the cost of repairing the damage. With "White Rot", it's "Vintage" = "Used" = Insurance-Exempt and a "so, sue us, and you can lose and pay our legal fees, too" attitude. I wrote the Estimate on it and the client approved it, but I found A LOT more than I had bargained for once I started the Recapping. Since I had already written an Estimate before I discovered the most-hidden of the issues, it made good Customer Service sense for me to cap the total for the Invoice at no more than the standard maximum of 10%-over the Estimate.

Almost finished, I sent the latest Progress Report on Sunday, and the client replied that he had "lost interest" in having the set Restored, said he was "not a true TV Collector per se", said that the set seemed to mean a lot more to me than it did to him, and invited me to make an offer to Purchase it. Well, I made the offer and offered to "split the difference" for the reduction in value caused by the "ineligible for Insurance coverage" damage. Offer accepted, PayPal payment sent, and a 621 in Mahogany finish joins my Collection and list of In-Progress personal Restoration work. At the moment, I could've used the revenue more than the addition to my Collection, but the low APR on my credit card screamed "Score that 621 while you can!" at me. Since 2010 was my best year ever in terms of business and 2011 is starting with four items on the schedule from just one of the Regulars on my client list and some first-time Requests on the way, too, I opted to Buy rather than offer to sell it on Consignment for him.

The bad aspects first. Its 7DP4 necked in transit (despite being shipped separately). Refinishing needed and a weak spot in the veneer adhesive has caused a "bulging" spot in the veneer on one side. Power transformer replaced long ago with splices covered in MASKING tape. Tuner Detent trashed. All six Tuner switch wafers cracked. Cracked Sound IF tube socket. Missing Channel knob. Escutcheon lettering badly worn. HV cage cover missing.

Now for the good aspects. It's a 621TS! The price matched its "kit form" condition. I've already bought and paid for all the parts to Restore it, including a lucky score of an intact replacement 7DP4 with the kind of tester readings normally observed only on a NOS tube at a much lower price than expected. The 7DP4 might very well be a "NOS without Box" tube. By the time the Client backed out of the deal, the Restoration was already 90%+ complete. The HV cage was easy enough for my metalwork vendor to replicate by providing a 721 cage and showing them a photo of a 621cage (identical to the 721 cage except that two corner fillets are omitted from the metalwork of the 621 cage). We have an excellent Cabinetry Specialist. The Machinist who Jamie and I met at a car show (demonstrating 1/4-scale working engines including a replica 5.0L Ford V8 scaled down to 50cc that he built from scratch) had that RCA #71463 Shaft/Detent rebuilt like new in under a week. A complete switch wafer assembly was harvested from the Tuner on a cabinetless early-production 630TS chassis already "stripped" beyond Restoration when we scored it, and was a perfect match.

Other notes include. The screenshot shown is from earlier in the process, when we first tested the Recapped chassis with its replacement 7DP4 instead of a 5AXP4. Since then, picture quality has been improved dramatically. High-frequency response above 2.5 MHz is still substandard, and I'm investigating to find the trouble and get the "spokes" of the vertical wedges sharply defined instead of blurring into a solid wedge of gray beyond the 2.5 MHz / 180 Lines. It seems to be an IF issue, since getting a 22.17 MHz marker anywhere near the same 60% position on the Response curve as 25.75 MHz (corresponding to 3.58 MHz IF bandwidth) is outside available range of the Alignment controls. I've checked essentially everything I can think of, and had BigDave re-check my work.