CTC 7 Anderson from Topeka Kansas

[zenithfan1]

This is the CTC7 that was for sale in Topeka with that collection of sets that Alan was gracious enough to share with us. I discovered his post about those sets 4 minutes after it was posted. I just happened to scan VK on my break and got lucky, a 5 year search for a nice, affordable 7 was over and I wasn't even looking anymore. It seems when I do that, things just happen out of the blue.

I had it shipped with U-Ship and the shipper is a nice guy but was a little uninformed about moving vintage tvs and somehow the legs gave out on the way here. Well, as we all know sh*t happens and you just have to get over it. With all that going on with the set I put the 11's on a hold until I at least get this cabinet done. It bugged the crap out of me being messed up so I spent the entire weekend repairing it. I didn't want it to break more or lose any of the little wood pieces. The legs turned out perfect, you can barely tell anything happened. I was worried that it may not be strong enough anymore so at work I took a similar sized piece of wood as the main support in the back and spit it with a chisel similar to the broken wood at home. I glued it with Titebond wood glue and let it dry for only a few hours and I had to destroy it with a hammer to break again, it spit in a new place. This made my worries go away. I really didn't want to add wood and make it obvious of a repair, looks like all the original wood will stand the test of time for many more years. When I move, I'm taking the legs off to move this thing just to be safe. I'm also repairing the damaged printed finish, some scratches were there, some are from shipping but altogether the cabinet looks good with the printed finish so I will save it until it peels off and I have to veneer it like Nick did on his beautiful Anderson he lent to the museum. The method of repair I'm using is dark red, black, and brown model paints and I am mixing them to achieve the various shades in the finish. Most of the reddish brown is repaired and now I'm putting the blackish brown grain stripes on the larger areas of repair to blend them in. I also fixed a few spots with red Mahogany stain. The bottom edge of the cabinet and the bottom of the strip of wood above the speaker, so now the wood all around the speaker grille looks nice again. The grille cloth is perfect, I originally thought strings were pulled loose but it turns out they were threads hanging and got pinched under the board and the ends were hanging out in the front. I trimmed all the crap off and it fit back in perfect and looks new.
I will start on the chassis restoration after I get the 11's sorted out better. I powered this one up slowly and was greeted with a full, bright raster. I touched up greyscale just by eye and watched a decently converged color picture for about an hour. The cans stayed cool but they will be re-stuffed anyway. I checked the 21CYP22A CRT and it was already wide awake with NOS like emissions and infinite life test on all three guns, had to turn the heater down to 3v to get a drop. It was installed by a shop in Topeka in 1965. I'll post a pic of the receipt and paperwork for the CRT later, don't have a pic of it now. It was $145 dollars to get that done, 12 bucks labor. I think its funny that the tech that filled it out lists the tube as a "21CYP4" P4 is black and white phosphor! LOL!
Here are some before and after pics of the cabinet so far: