Finished up the cabinet work today. Disassembled the cabinet front completely, to repair a crack that split the grille into 2 separate pieces. Reglued a few areas of loose veneer and delaminating plywood, and gave everything a good sanding. Stained the cabinet sides, top, and front frame with Minwax dark walnut oil stain, with the speaker grille and CRT bezel in a lighter "gunstock" shade. The inner surface of the bezel and the mask behind the safety glass were done in a gold metallic paint, as per original. Stain covered with 5-6 coats of Minwax aerosol lacquer. I think it came out pretty well, considering my lack of experience doing this kind of work.
Unfortunately, as it had already been stripped before I got it, the cabinet is missing the control label decals. I looked at the Radio Daze website, but couldn't find any suitable reproductions. Does anyone have a source for these?
The missing "RCA Victor" decal under the screen was replaced with a brass logo plate of the same size which I salvaged from a 1948 model 8T241 which was too far gone to be anything but a parts source. Looks classier than a simple decal, IMO. The missing safety glass was replaced with a sheet of 1/4" polycarbonate plastic. All the cabinet needs to complete it is the jewel for the pilot lamp. Will leave the cabinet here in the shop for a while to allow the solvent smells to dissipate a bit before bringing it back home to reunite with the chassis and CRT.
On the electronics front, I got on eBay and found a suitable vintage sweep generator so I can check and touch up the IF alignment as needed. Have never done an IF alignment before, but decided now would be a good time to learn.
Once the generator comes in, It will get its own cleaning and probable recapping, then hook it all up and see what gives with the sound issues. Chassis probably has 8-10 hours on it now playing through the added composite input, with no problems other than the failure of a 5U4G tube last night. Appears to be a bad solder joint on one of the filament pins. Have plenty of 5U4GBs to use, but the ST-bulbed "G" version just "looks right" in this set...
