I haven't done anything to the cabinet except for a quick wipe with a soft cloth & mineral spirits to remove old furniture polish & dust. It has little nicks and scuffs if you look closely, but it should look great after a standard touch-up. The finish has a very deep appearance -- more than the usual number of lacquer coats, perhaps. It's a quality cabinet. The side panels have veneer but the rest looks like solid wood.
This set was well cared for. This seller got it from the original family in Tacoma. I think he paid only a few bucks or got it free. He buys various things from estates and remarked on how old TVs are sometimes giveaway items. I gave him my email address and told him what to watch for in these lines.
In the cabinet I found an RCA service tag from 1977 with the owner's name & address. No work is recorded, so perhaps they made another tag or the owners decided not to fix it after they got a price estimate.
Replacing the fuse holder sounds like a fine idea. Seems odd that a serviceman would remove a fuse and not replace it. Perhaps some fumblefingers owner removed it and dropped it into the gap between the chassis and the cabinet side, where you can't retrieve it without pulling the chassis.
Despite all my lectures to self, I did try powering it up after checking & cleaning all the tubes. Tubes lit up, but there was no sign of B+. It drew much less current than you'd expect, and there was no spooling-up sound from the HV or static from the speakers. I found one fuse on the top of the chassis (what you'd call the top when it's lying flat). Eventually I spotted this fuse on a Sams diagram. My CTC-11 chassis are very similar to this, but they don't have a fuse in that spot.
I see a part labeled Thermal Switch in the schematic. I guess it's a B+ delay similar the one in some old DuMonts. Several seconds after powering up, you can hear it click on. I'm curious to see what it looks like in the flesh. The drawing in the schematic reminds me of a toaster switch: power resistor plus bimetallic strip, perhaps.
It's dumb luck that I got this set. I happened to check CL a few minutes after he posted the ad, and I phoned him immediately. Half an hour after he had put up the ad, I was tooling down the highway with cash in hand. Perhaps getting a good deal once in a blue moon will help balance all the other times I've paid more than I should
Phil Nelson