U-Test-M restoration

[ohohyodafarted]

I just finished it so here are a few photos. It was in very bad condidion. Tester needed repair, turned out to be an open multi section wire wound tubular resistor, and that got it back up and running.

I got this unit acouple months back. It was originally located in the gas station/repair garage of a Phillips 66 station about 50 miles south west of Chicago. The daughter of the late gas station owner had saved it and was being stored at her home.

When I was about 12, back in 1959, I remember going to Rosen's drug store, near my house, to use a tester exactly like this one. It was burried in a back corner of the drug store. When the Hallicrafter 820 you see in my avitar, would act up, I would pull all the tubes and go to Rosens to test them.

BTW, the U-Test-M company was located on the south side of Milwaukee. I found two addresses for them. One of the locations was around 42nd and Lincoln. So for me this was a localy company that had a national presence.

The metal cabinet needed to be completely sanded down. Then it was sprayed with two coats of gray hammertone enamel.

The vacuum formed sign was badly cracked and broken. I made a new frame from white model builders styrene sheet, and mounted the old sign over it. There is still a small piece of the sign missing in the upper right corner, but I cant do anything about that.

The decal on the front is a recreation of the original. I took a high resolution photo of the original and loaded it into MS Publisher. Then I made an exact replica and output it as a .jpg. I took the .jpg to Kinkos and had them print it on white poster stock with a presure sensitive adhesive backing. Then I had them laminate a clear protective film over the artwork. It was a simple mater to mount it just like a bumper sticker.

It displays nice and is also functional, however I will still be using my Hickock tube tester for every day tube testing.

Here are the before and after photos.

Before


After


After front open

[Steve K]

Bob:

As usual you do excellent work. I will have to save some tube boxes for you!

Steve

[ohohyodafarted]

Thank you Steve,

That would be greatly appreciated. It looks so empty right now.

Bob

[bandersen]

Wow - fantastic job

P.S. I'm so jealous of your workshop/museum/showroom

[Phil Nelson]

That's one heckuva workshop, all right. I hope you keep your insurance premiums paid up!

The sign with the lady is priceless. It would be fun to take a hi-res image of that and make a lighted clock, or just a lighted wall display.

Phil Nelson

[ohohyodafarted]

She is just a typical 1950"s housewife/mom that understands electronics, and repairs her own B&W tv

[Reece]

Wow, I'm back at the 7-11 with my box full o' tubes to test! Great job.

[pugs5061]

That is so cool!

[electroking]

Does anyone remember a cartoon (possibly from Radio-Electronics) of a guy who
had plugged several tubes (including a CRT) into the tester, and who was being told
by the store clerk: 'Just one at a time, sir!'?

Great restoration, sure brings memories. We had one at a drugstore within a
3-minute walk when I was a kid. I went there with my father carrying the 5
tubes from our AA5 radio, and he was led to buy 4 new tubes. I remember
him throwing the 4 duds at the base of a tree (though usually my father
behaved in a more civic way) on the way back home. And the radio did get
back to work!

[jeyurkon]

That really looks great Bob!

I'm pretty sure that's the model that was in our local electronics store when I was a kid.

John

[bandersen]

I won a small collection of vintage test equipment ads and found these.






The hi-res scans are here.