Rca Ctc9

[Phil Nelson]

Originally Posted by Ampico-kid

It's one of those photo finishes and it looks like it's starting to flake off.

Stewart Schooley has done lots of experimentation over the last few years on reproducing photo finishes.

http://pages.cthome.net/ptf/photofin/photoFinish.html

Long story short, it's possible, but not easy, to reproduce it.

It depends on how much you care about the cabinet, and what's underneath the photo finish. In certain old radios, the wood under the decal is actually a nice walnut veneer, which you can strip and refinish with normal methods (although the grain pattern won't match the original photofinish). In other sets, the underlying wood is cheap stuff that won't look very nice no matter what you do.

If the old photofinish just has a few nicks and little boo-boos, your best bet is probably to touch it up with brown paint and little artist brushes, shoot it with a couple of coats of clear lacquer, and declare victory.

If it is too scarred to touch up, then you need to decide whether to redo only the top, or the whole cabinet. If you are able to strip only the top without damaging the rest of the cabinet, that should tell you which way to go with the whole project.

Or, if that's all too much hassle, you can just put a nice cloth on the top and pretend it's already perfect :-)

Good luck.

Phil Nelson
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

[Ampico-kid]

Hi Phil;

Thanks for the information.

I took a look at the Stewart Schooley site and it looks like the photo finish that I would need to have done is not very practical. It's a very large area, as opposed to a small antique radio cabinet. The top of my set has some pretty severe "lifting" of the finish and I'll have to come up with something to dress is up. I'm not sure just what yet, but I've got time. I think the first order of business is to get the TV working.

Thanks again for the information.

Bob.

[Einar72]

Glad to see you got it! I was beginning to wonder if there was a pox on RCA around here (see my tirade elsewhere in this section). I have a CTC-10 remote in a metal cabinet, no less, a CTC-11 like the one used in a 1983 MTV ad, and hope to have an Aldrich someday. They are new enough you don't get that "is it gonna blow?" feeling when you turn it on.

[David Roper]

Originally Posted by Einar72

you don't get that "is it gonna blow?" feeling when you turn it on.

If you know exactly when to turn it on it's less likely to blow, and even then you can always change the channel.