Motorola VK-101 Restoration

[Steve K]

Fellow forum member Doug621TS gave me two 1948 Motorola VK-101s. I made one good one out of the two and finished restoring it this morning. The condition of the sets were as follows: Set A had a reasonable good cabinet but the chassis was modified to hold a 14 inch diagonal CRT in place of the original 10BP4 and the original screen bezel was removed and the front cut bigger to accommodate the new tube. Set B had a bad cabinet (feet missing and bad veneer) but a good screen surround and a good chassis. I was able to separate the screen surround and molding from the bad cabinet and put it on the better cabinet. I then stripped the cabinet and lacquered it.

I recapped and restored the radio and TV chassis and got a pretty good picture on it. This set is rather unusual. The service controls are located on the side of the TV chassis and are accessible through holes in the side of the cabinet covered with metal plugs. The Vertical and Horizontal controls are also on the side but have ONE knob to adjust them. After adjusting one, you pull the knob off and stick it in the other hole to adjust the other. I thought that there has to be a knob missing but according to the original Motorola factor manual they came with only one knob to adjust the H and V!

Both of the cabinets were dated a few days apart in February of 1948.

Thank you Doug for a fun project. Now where do I put this thing?

Steve