A 1948 Admiral 19A11

[M3-SRT8]

Originally Posted by Gleb

BTW, I really wonder why bakelite cabinets weren't popular here in Russia. There were a few bakelite radios but no televisions. In fact, the first plastic television was produced here in 1965:

That's a good question. The Russians were big into molded plastic reinforced woods, stressed bakelite plywood and phenol formaldehyde resins in the 30's, and used these technologies in aircraft manufacture. The Lavochkin LaGG/La Series of fighter a/c used much of this technology thru the end of 1944 until switching to dural stressed skin construction.

Also, those gigantic 2-story bakelite mold presses that Admiral used for their television cabinets were originally contracted by the USSR during the Second World War, and I'm guessing it was for aircraft component manufacture. With the end of the war the Russians refused the equipment. By that time they had adequate stocks of duralumin to build aircraft (again, much of it from the USA), and drifted away from resins and woods for aircraft.