Very early Motorola VT71 scored

[bandersen]

Originally Posted by pugs5061

Interesting, I have a TS18A serial number 338581 built on 11/29/49. I wonder if Motorola made 250,000 sets between the last one Bob listed and my set or if they started a new numbering system for every chassis type?

That's the first 6 digit serial # I've come across. I bet by 1949 sales were pretty good.

Originally Posted by Eric H

From a Timeline of Motorola History.
Their first set was made in 1947, more than 100,000 units were sold the first year.
If 2425 is the serial number it must be from the first week or two of production!

I figured they sold many 100,000s of these sets overall. I wonder if the did restart the numbering with each revision as suggested. Maybe even every month ?

[Glenz75]

Nice looking set Bob Underneath reminds me so much of the oddball TV that I'm currently working on, same solar caps and mica caps etc.. All very interesting...Cheers!

[Zenith26kc20]

My Sears with the 7F8's is a big (read: HEAVY!) set with a row of vertical pushbuttons for a tuner. I had help putting it on a shelf up high and now need help getting it down (soon). I started on it a bit ago and got side tracked by work.
I am curious.... That Motorola has .03 capacitors in the vertical. My Motorolas have .005 in them. My Motorola book shows the underneath couplings in the place that yours are but does not show the top ones. If the chassis mount ones are 6KV, they must be insulated better than just a cardboard sleeve (?). I had to use ceramic disc capacitors the first time to get the correct voltage rating. It amazes me how many of these little sets survived. When I first got into TV these were already considered "unfixable" due to horizontal frequency problems. The owner of the shop where I worked at the time laughed when I adopted one. He said "you'll never get it working"! It still works today!
Keep us well posted on this one!

[bandersen]

Originally Posted by Glenz75

Nice looking set Bob Underneath reminds me so much of the oddball TV that I'm currently working on, same solar caps and mica caps etc.. All very interesting...Cheers!

Thanks. Yeah, they are strange little sets for sure. It's been a while since I work on one and my first impression when I saw this chassis was that there just aren't enough tubes

Originally Posted by Zenith26kc20

My Sears with the 7F8's is a big (read: HEAVY!) set with a row of vertical pushbuttons for a tuner. I had help putting it on a shelf up high and now need help getting it down (soon). I started on it a bit ago and got side tracked by work.
I am curious.... That Motorola has .03 capacitors in the vertical. My Motorolas have .005 in them. My Motorola book shows the underneath couplings in the place that yours are but does not show the top ones. If the chassis mount ones are 6KV, they must be insulated better than just a cardboard sleeve (?). I had to use ceramic disc capacitors the first time to get the correct voltage rating. It amazes me how many of these little sets survived. When I first got into TV these were already considered "unfixable" due to horizontal frequency problems. The owner of the shop where I worked at the time laughed when I adopted one. He said "you'll never get it working"! It still works today!
Keep us well posted on this one!

Ah, that does look just like my Silvertone 8132. Yes, very heavy! Also very weird and cool design. I picked mine up a few months ago and haven't touched it yet. I'm really itching too, but am determined to stay focused and finish off some projects first.

The 0.03 caps are metal cans with the can as one side of the caps and a single lead coming out of one end. So, yeah, the whole can is at a high potential. The cardboard sleeve is about 1/16" thick.

The horizontal caps also have a metal jacket, but one HV lead comes out of each end and the can floats.

[bandersen]

I almost forgot the best part, the 7JP4 tests very good The life test is rock solid too.

[mbates14]

looking forward to the restoration of it, and youtube videos.

[bandersen]

Originally Posted by mbates14

looking forward to the restoration of it, and youtube videos.

It's uploading right now

[Sandy G]

Wonder if anyone at Motorola, Admiral, et al ever thought people would STILL be "Fussin'" over these things 65 years later ?!?

[mbates14]

I doubt it, but then again, who knows, they may be part of the modern age and use computers now? and see this stuff?

[bandersen]

It's too dang hot to do any soldering in my workshop so I'll do a little cabinet work. Although I did just use some Howard's products on it and it looks OK, I decided to go a step further, but not strip it.

Unlike the other VT71s I've worked on, this one doesn't have a control panel with metal tabs on the ends. Rather it's held on from behind.


Nice and gooey It's still doing a decent job of supporting the CRT though so I'll leave it in place until I can get a reproduction from Renovated Radios.

I suppose I could unmount the CRT, but it's a pain to remount them. I'll just put some newspaper over the face to protect it.


First, I very lightly sanded down the old finish to get rid of the worst of the alligatoring. Then applied 5 layers of sanding sealer with more sanding between each layer. My goal is to fill in all the defects while preserving the color.


As for the control panel, I'll sand off what remains of the old decals and replace them. I have a nice set of repro. decals from Radiodaze, but the channel lineup isn't quite right.

On the left is a set I made a while back for a blonde set using an inkjet printer and special water slide decal paper. I figure I can carefully cutup the gold set to get the channels #s right.
[/url]

[Zenith26kc20]

This set is fascinating to me. I spent a good bit of time looking over my Motorola service book on the TS-4's the last few days and no pictures of the .03 caps on top of the board are shown or mentioned.
Also, unless I missed someting, no .03 mfd's are listed in the sweep circuits. One variation does show a .0005 horizontal coupling. The high voltage cage is pictured correctly as well as no fine tuning. All of my TS-4's have fine tuning.
Keep us informed. I want to see this one play!

[bandersen]

Mine is a cross between the TS-4 early and late found in Riders Vol #1. You can download a scan from the Early Television Foundation.

I wonder if those 0.03 caps could still be good ? I think they're oil filled and those tend to last a long time. I also really want to retain the original look and they don't look easy to rebuild.

If I do need to replace them, I'd like to get some nice ASC caps like I used in my Hallicrafters. They are 0.022 mfd @ 6,000v caps from Allied Electronics. Not quite 0.03 but they worked fine.
Sadly, they're out of stock of just about all ASC HV caps

[bandersen]

I'm just about done with the cabinet. One of the last tasks was to apply the decals.

These were fairly easy.


Now for the tricky part - cutting them up for the channel #1 lineup.





Here they after a few coats of lacquer. The 7 and 5-6 are slight askew, but I doubt most folks will notice.

[kvflyer]

Looks good Bob as usual. I have 5 of these little guys. So far, I have only restored one of them. Don't remember the version but it doesn't have channel 1. Another one that I have is a blonde cabinet. Still sitting in queue. And another one has channel 1 but one of the coils below was physically damaged. I have an 8" Motorola, can't remember the number that may well become a donor chassis. The CRT tests excellent as well. All in all, most of my 7JP4 tubes are adequate with two rather weak but not dead.

I especially like the decals that you came up with!

[bandersen]

Time to tackle the old, melted CRT mask. Most of it peeled away. I then used water and a small brush to work the rest loose.

Yummy



Here's the new reproduction mask installed.


The original brown paint had mostly flaked off the bottom. I recently read a tip that the Rustoleum "camouflage" series works well for cabinet bottoms, backs and insides.
First, I removed the feet and masked off the cabinet and label.
Then, sealed it with shellac and sprayed on a couple light coats. It's very flat and I think looks pretty good.


The rest of the cabinet is just about done too. I think one more round of 1000 grit sanding and a final coat of semi-gloss lacquer will do it.

What I did was patch the veneer chips and lightly sand the top layer of the old finish. Then fill in the voids with lacquer sanding sealer. Finally, put on a few coast of semi-gloss lacquer. My goal was to retain the original patina, but fix up the biggest flaws and protect it.



If you're wondering why the remote controls to the right are upside down - it's so they don't scratch my vintage coffee table