Philco 16/16b

[Titan1a]

1933 11 tube all-wave radio in 5 bands. One of Philco's largest table radios. Includes Type One shadow tuning meter. Has interstation quieting on early models. Will need new tuning cap grommets. Very sensitive! Vernier dual knob gear tuning. Expensive when new and when properly restored worth up to $700. A keeper!

[sean]

You definitely have a keeper there when it is restored. I just restored one about 2 months ago. There's something like 14 Bakelite block caps under the chassis but they are simple to rebuild. For the most part you can leave them connected to the circuit and just loosen them by removing the mounting screw. Heat up the body on all sides except the tar side to soften the tar. I have a tool I made with a piece of brazing rod that just slips through the eyelet rivets that hold the terminals. Once the tar is soft enough I poke the tool through the center eyelet and push the guts out the back. Finish cleaning up the inside and the terminals and re-install new caps.

The large filter can is easy to gut also. Probably easier than the Bakelite blocks. The other 2 electrolytics I cut open, gutted, and stuffed. One of them is a wet type electrolytic and mine was still wet.

The worst part on that radio will be replacing the tuning capacitor grommets and the rubber drives for the tuning control. I came across a YouTube video series someone did on restoring a 16B and they show how they handled the capacitor grommets. For the drives I cut a rubber o-ring and re-glued it around the drive hubs after removing the old hardened rubber.