39 RCA, 57 Zenith, and 47 Admiral

[Adam]

So back in the spring of 2012 both my cats jumped up on a shelf loaded with radios at once, and the shelf came down, most of the radios fell and broke. Most I parted out, but now I'm getting to fixing two of them.

The cabinet for the 39 RCA was really damaged beyond repair, but I managed to pick up another one in the bakelite, rather than the plaskon cabinet. The chassis in my first radio was undamaged except for the ballast tube. I had already recapped it and replaced the bad rubber insulated wire. The new chassis had a mostly disintegrated speaker, but was otherwise complete. And the new radio had pushbuttons where my first one didn't. And that unusual cylindrical dial indicator was cracked on the new chassis, but good on my original one.

I swapped the push button mechanism onto the chassis of my first radio, along with the ballast tube. I also swapped the volume control from the other chassis, as the radio originally had a twist-on switch, and I had changed it for a pull-on one when I fixed it years ago.

I was able to repaint the gold numbers on the dial scale by painting that whole area, then wiping it off with a lacquer thinner soaked paper towel. But I can't do the same with the "RCA Victor" in the center of the cabinet, because it isn't carved into the cabinet like the numbers on the dial scale are.

The first 3 pics are the composite radio I put together from the two. The second two pics are the chassis I didn't use from my second radio after I took parts from it, and the broken cabinet of my first radio.

[Adam]

The 57 Zenith was not damaged as badly as the RCA, in what I now refer to as the "Great Cat-induced Radio-lanche of 2012." There were some minor cracks in the plastic cabinet I already repaired, but that metal piece around the dial was bent up enough, that I've had to get out the bondo to completely repair it. I'm still working on it.

The chassis still works. This one had when I got it, a broken oscillator coil. It originally used the 5-pin type, but I modified it to work with a 3-pin type which I had.

[Adam]

The 47 Admiral is one I just haven't gotten to repairing until now. The chassis was a little rusty and I had to clean it with the naval jelly. The cabinet was originally pained white, but later it was painted over with a brush. I'm in the process of just stripping all the paint and polishing the bakelite underneath. It's well preserved and polishing up good.

I got it working with a power cord replacement, and partial recap. I'll finish recapping and do an alignment before I put it together.

After I got it working I couldn't believe I was actually receiving music on AM radio. It turns out we actually have a small 10KW AM music station that isn't too bad here in Lansing on 1180. Mostly oldies, and not all late-60s and 1970s music like most oldies stations nowadays, I heard some 40s and 50s stuff, and they even played some Dean Martin.

[Sandy G]

Ya Done Good !

[old_coot88]

What fate befell the cat?

[Adam]

Made some more progress with the Admiral cabinet. Using the paint stripper is a slow process, but it's working.

Originally Posted by Sandy G

Ya Done Good !

Thanks, after these I'll only have one table radio left that needs fixing a 39 Truetone that needs re-veneering.

Originally Posted by old_coot88

What fate befell the cat?

I just saw one of my cats sleeping atop a Philco 41-295.

[Adam]

I finally finished stripping the Admiral. The bakelite was in great condition and it polished up well, because it was protected by the paint. But it was a major pain in the butt to strip that cabinet without scraping or scratching it. I mostly used one of those plastic "bondo spreaders" and a sharpened chopstick to take the paint off.

[DavGoodlin]

Very nice Admiral. What did you polish the bakelite with? And how does it sound with that large output transformer?

Admiral radios seem to be pretty scarce around here.
It looks very similar to a Philco 46-200 but with octal tubes.

Is the RCA up next? It looks very unusual and compact.

[Adam]

I started with Novus #2, but then ran out of it and picked up some of this Turtle Wax polishing compound at a local hardware store. But the main function of the polishing here was to get the last of the paint off, it's that shiny mainly because the bakelite was so well preserved under the paint for all those years. I've never really found anything that polished bakelite good. I used to be a huge fan of this stuff called Rally Wax, but I've never tried it on bakelite and haven't even seen any in years, I think they stopped making it.

It sounds pretty good, and is much more sensitive than I expected. It has better sound quality than both the other radios in this thread. It's more sensitive than the RCA, but not quite as good as the Zenith. It pulls in stations about as well as my Philco 49-900 hippo, which is surprising because the Philco is a 6-tuber with 2 IFs.

I covered the RCA in my first post, now I'm finishing up the Zenith. In the 1st post, the first 3 pics are the completed radio, the 4th the chassis I used for parts, the 5th the broken cabinet from the other radio.

[Adam]

Cat with radios. That Zenith is going to go where the cat is. Note the sturdier shelving than what I had before...

[Adam]

I finally finished with the 57 Zenith. It was way harder to get that metal piece back in to shape than I had expected.

I've been in a fix it, sell it, or part it out mood this summer. I was just tired of having a list of 20+ radios that needed fixing that I was probably never going to get to. This Zenith is probably the the last one I'll do now. But I'm down to a list of just 4 left that I still want to fix: a '39 Truetone wooden AM table radio, a Philco 39-116 (the one with the mystery control), a Hallicrafters SX-28, and a '49 Capehart radio/phono console.