Admiral T1811

[jbivy]

So I picked up this little Admiral today. From what I can find out, its either a 1953 or 1954 model. Model T1811, the chassis is the 19B1. The chassis itself has a tad of rust on it, but what scares me is the crt, a 17BP4A, has a picture brightener attached to it. Though on the good side, the bakelite case is in very nice condition and the scratches are very minor, they should all polish out.

Well I will pull the chassis tomorrow and see just how bad it is.

[Tony V]

I have one of these. Its a good performer once gone through. Its one of the more reliable sets in my collection. Good luck on yours.

[dieseljeep]

They made that model for two years. Those kind of knobs, make it a '54 model.
IIRC, it was the last model to use Syncroguide.
I have one just like it! It appears to never have been serviced, as all the tubes and the CRT are original.
It uses the penthode tuner and it is probably the lowest priced set in the line that year. Still a good performer and had a transformer chassis.

[decojoe67]

There's something about those bakelite cabinet sets that I find very appealing, especially when they're highly polished. Cool '50's artifact.

[jbivy]

Thank you for identifying the exact year Dieseljeep.

I wont be able to test the crt till the weekend. My uncle who has the crt tester is up north, but getting a heart stent on wednesday. So it will be at least the weekend before I can go and pick it up.

[Sandy G]

Keep yr Fingers Crossed !

[Captain Video]

It still have the control cover door, which is missing on almost a hundred percent of those sets!!! I have one of this model myself ( mine is a 1953 ) and it doesn't have the little door.

[jbivy]

Damage report.

Yoke looks good, chassis rust is all external, 5 tubes tested bad or low, one pot is frozen. Dont see any obviously bad caps or disintegrated resistors. All in all, it looks decent. Just wish I didnt have to wait till the weekend to check the crt. Seeing that picture brightener on it scares me.

Now I just have to decide if ill start on this or my new 1952 Crosley tabletop first.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Captain Video

It still have the control cover door, which is missing on almost a hundred percent of those sets!!! I have one of this model myself ( mine is a 1953 ) and it doesn't have the little door.

My Admiral set like it has the cover, as well. It had to be removed to make the adjustments and seemed to be lost all the time. I bought and sold several of those sets and IIRC, only one had the cover.

[kramden66]

you could always get a crt , the 17BP4 isn't that hard to find

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by kramden66

you could always get a crt , the 17BP4 isn't that hard to find

I would try to get an aluminized one.

[DavGoodlin]

I have one of these but it is brown, model 17DX12 and is missing the back cover and HV can.
Even though it is Admiral's lowest priced set, it is still a quality design and dependable.

As Dieseljeep says, that is not a control door but a cover that has two pins instead of a hinge and it needs to be pulled off to access the controls. I recapped mine in the half-ass way I did that in my highschool days and it looked great. It sits waiting with my other projects.

[Kevin Kuehn]

Gotta love the way Admiral chassis are laid out. So very practical to restore. Almost as if they were expecting us to restore them many years later.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by Kevin Kuehn

... Almost as if they were expecting us to restore them many years later.

Actually, they probably found that the factory assemblers could work faster installing parts in a roomy chassis. Steel was fairly cheap.

[Kevin Kuehn]

Makes sense. So it's a win-win for them and us.