Show us your vintage B&W sets!

[jeyurkon]

Originally Posted by jshorva65

...About a year after I initially restored the TV, it developed a vertical sync problem. At first, I suspected that one of the original electrolytics that had re-formed nicely during the initial Restoration work had finally given up (would have been the second such failure in something like 8 years since I started keeping track). Instead, my 99% (probably closer to 99.5% by now) success rate at achieving long-term reliability on electrolytics where ESR and leakage check out OK after re-forming remains intact...

I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thinks it's possible to trust vintage electrolytics if the ESR and leakage test ok.

John

[jshorva65]

Here are the latest additions to the Restored B/W categories of my collection and of Jamie's. The Philco 50T1403 on the left was the one I scored from the contractor I mentioned before who noticed my collection and workstations while compiling an Estimate for some work to be done on the house. The Hotpoint 14S202 on the right was the Birthday gift for Jamie that I had mentioned before. She had seen an overpriced and non-working "hot pink" Hotpoint on eBay and mentioned that she liked the look of the set. With that in mind, I located a working example at a more reasonable price and completed a "preventive maintenance" recap on it.

Since the DTV Conversion has reached my area, there were no off-air signals to tune in. The nearest signal distribution jack from the DTV Converter and DVD player hookup is on the other side of the room. I've got the signal routing set up to facilitate multi-set displays in only one room so far, with just a single connection in other rooms. Expansion for multi-set displays in multiple rooms will be completed later this year.

As of today, Jamie's collection consists of three Restored B/W, one Unrestored B/W. My collection consists of ten Restored B/W sets, eleven Unrestored B/W, three In-Progress B/W Restorations, three Restored Color sets, three Unrestored Color sets, and one In-Progress Color Restoration.

[jshorva65]

Just scored a Silvertone 110.700 on eBay last week and awaiting its arrival. That model was the first 50s B/W set I had ever restored, about 25 years ago. I've been looking for another example of that model ever since the original one's 12LP4 was destroyed by my younger brother (either accidentally or deliberately, never could tell with him, but the cracked neck was nowhere near as obvious as the BB holes in the screen of a '65 Zenith B/W portable years earlier or the smashed dial glass on a '37 Delco R-1116 table radio before that). I guess it was "bad for his image" as a wannabe high-school football star to have a brother who collected "antique" anything? Who knows? That set is nearly identical to the Pathe 12-2, and a relatively easy chassis to recap due to the 'lytics being tubular axial units mounted under the chassis.

[jshorva65]

The Silvertone 110.700 arrived today, but with a severe case of "Brown Rot" as "OOPS" yet again earned its nicknames by de-necking the 12LP4 in transit. Note how ALL of the phosphor was blown off the face of the tube in this case. They'll be sending an agent to do an on-site inspection tomorrow. Due to the broken glass inside the set whenever they've broken a CRT, I always insist that the set cannot be moved and must be inspected on-site, and they've typically complied. Besides, I don't trust them to return the remains of a damaged set without creating a far worse situation than the original claim. I also typically have several of my restored sets operating whenever the agent is due to arrive, demonstrating that it is not unusually difficult to bring an undamaged set back to working order.