Ct-100

[Phil Nelson]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

the foot is a little more brownish.

You may be seeing normal assembly-line variations. The foot is likely a different type of wood than the veneered front. Manufacturers used toner rather than stain because it did a better job of giving an even color on both the expensive veneer and the cheaper structural pieces. (Plus, toning lacquer dried very quickly, unlike stain.) Wood is a natural product, and not every piece of the same type of wood is identical.

Cabinets were made on an assembly line by humans, not robots. On ARF someone posted a video of RCA TV production in the 1950s. In the finishing segment, the cabinets are on a moving conveyor and the lady sprays on lacquer with a hose that looks like it could cover a school bus in a few seconds if she opened the nozzle a little more. It's remarkable what a good job the workers (generally) did under such production pressure. As you probably know from finishing, even a moment's inattention can produce unevenness, and different kinds of wood may still look a little different under a uniform coat, owing to differences in the tightness/depth of the grain and the way it takes the light at different angles. Then you need to factor in the unpredictable effects of UV fading over a period of decades. I have seen a photo of a CT-100 that sat in a sunny store window for years, and its color looked nothing like an original.

Phil Nelson