Admiral 14R12 Restoration

[Crist Rigott]

Now that the mini project is done I'm going to sand, rub out and polish the cabinet. It's been 2 weeks since I shot the clear lacquer.

I also added a resistor and capacitor to blank out the retrace lines per Admiral's instructions. Worked great. I even used an existing terminal strip that had 2 unused terminals very close to the brightness pot.

[Crist Rigott]

Here's the refinished cabinet. It turned out great! Not perfect but real good.

On to making a new back.

[kvflyer]

I have the 26R12 set. I also had two of those clear picture tube covers or whatever you call them. Both of them were not perfectly clear. Rather they had a little swirl of white or cloudy in the plastic. It was not something that would polish out. Mind you, not objectionable, just noticeable to me.

Just letting you know since both of our sets are of the same vintage and probably same plastic source.

[Crist Rigott]

Yeah, mine has the same "defect" in the safety plastic. See the last picture above and the one below. I couldn't polish it out either.

[Kevin Kuehn]

The cabinet turned out great, it's just very hard to photograph something that's very shiny. Most clear plastic's become cloudy with age, especially if they've been exposed to high levels of sunlight over a long period of years. I doubt it will be a problem once you have the CRT lighting it from behind, at least not in a low ambient light room.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Kevin Kuehn

The cabinet turned out great, it's just very hard to photograph something that's very shiny. Most clear plastic's become cloudy with age, especially if they've been exposed to high levels of sunlight over a long period of years. I doubt it will be a problem once you have the CRT lighting it from behind, at least not in a low ambient light room.

I always used to use "Pledge" furniture polish on the plastic lenses on the 50's type portables. It seemed to fill in the minute scratches and improve the clarity.

[Crist Rigott]

Originally Posted by Kevin Kuehn

The cabinet turned out great, it's just very hard to photograph something that's very shiny. Most clear plastic's become cloudy with age, especially if they've been exposed to high levels of sunlight over a long period of years. I doubt it will be a problem once you have the CRT lighting it from behind, at least not in a low ambient light room.

Thanks.

Yeah, mine has become a little cloudy. However, there is a casting flaw in it just like kvflyer has in his.

[Crist Rigott]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

I always used to use "Pledge" furniture polish on the plastic lenses on the 50's type portables. It seemed to fill in the minute scratches and improve the clarity.

I'll try some of that. Thanks.

[Phil Nelson]

But don't EVER use Pledge on (or near) any old wooden cabinets. The silicone can permanently contaminate the finish and then you may have a heck of a problem if you ever want to refinish it. Google "silicone contamination" to learn more.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

[Crist Rigott]

Originally Posted by Phil Nelson

But don't EVER use Pledge on (or near) any old wooden cabinets. The silicone can permanently contaminate the finish and then you may have a heck of a problem if you ever want to refinish it. Google "silicone contamination" to learn more.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

Good point Phil!

[Crist Rigott]

Today I finished up some small details and mounted the chassis back into the cabinet. I still have to polish up the knobs, make the back, redo the labels, and add some longer speaker wires. Getting real close.

[Crist Rigott]

Just an update on the alignment.

I decided to check the tuner and work back through the TV. When checking the tuner on channel 3 it wouldn't align. The frequencies were too far off. I then decided to check channel 4 and sure enough the freq. were much closer, so I decided to use channel 4 instead of channel 3. Channel 4 aligned perfectly with the waveform and frequencies where they should be.

Then on the the IF section. Again the IF section aligned great with a correct waveform and on frequency.

I used a meter to align the first step in the 4.5mc audio section. But the 2nd step didn't work out so well. I never could get the meter to zero out. I hooked up the sweep generator and o'scope and peaked per step 1, but never could get the cross over pattern in step 2. I ended up just tweaking by ear.


Oh, I also used Wallace Teleaides to check the run updates and some cures for other problems. Looks like my TV is from run 5 and I installed the retrace mod, both vertical and horizontal picture was too large so I followed the steps to reduce those. I added some resistance and shorted out another resistor.

All-in-all the TV is playing very well. The picture tube isn't as bright and clear as I would like it, but it never did test into the green very far. I'm happy with the results so far.

Stay tuned for final pictures and report.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Crist Rigott

Just an update on the alignment.

I decided to check the tuner and work back through the TV. When checking the tuner on channel 3 it wouldn't align. The frequencies were too far off. I then decided to check channel 4 and sure enough the freq. were much closer, so I decided to use channel 4 instead of channel 3. Channel 4 aligned perfectly with the waveform and frequencies where they should be.

Then on the the IF section. Again the IF section aligned great with a correct waveform and on frequency.

I used a meter to align the first step in the 4.5mc audio section. But the 2nd step didn't work out so well. I never could get the meter to zero out. I hooked up the sweep generator and o'scope and peaked per step 1, but never could get the cross over pattern in step 2. I ended up just tweaking by ear.


Oh, I also used Wallace Teleaides to check the run updates and some cures for other problems. Looks like my TV is from run 5 and I installed the retrace mod, both vertical and horizontal picture was too large so I followed the steps to reduce those. I added some resistance and shorted out another resistor.

All-in-all the TV is playing very well. The picture tube isn't as bright and clear as I would like it, but it never did test into the green very far. I'm happy with the results so far.

Stay tuned for final pictures and report.

I don't think there was as many 14" rectangular sets built at the time, so the 14CP4 isn't that plentiful. It seems, Admiral and a few others came out with sets using the 16TP4 rectangular CRT, just a little later.
4,5 years later, the 14H/QP4 came out for smaller screen portables, like the Emerson and GE. They seem to be more plentiful and they use the identical glass, but are self focusing.

[Kevin Kuehn]

Originally Posted by Crist Rigott

Just an update on the alignment.
I decided to check the tuner and work back through the TV. When checking the tuner on channel 3 it wouldn't align. The frequencies were too far off. I then decided to check channel 4 and sure enough the freq. were much closer, so I decided to use channel 4 instead of channel 3. Channel 4 aligned perfectly with the waveform and frequencies where they should be.

So if I'm following this you injected the correct rf carrier signal into the antenna terminals for the selected channel? If so possibly the rf and oscillator coils for Ch 3 are interchanged with some other channel on the tuner drum.

Originally Posted by Crist Rigott

I used a meter to align the first step in the 4.5mc audio section. But the 2nd step didn't work out so well. I never could get the meter to zero out. I hooked up the sweep generator and o'scope and peaked per step 1, but never could get the cross over pattern in step 2. I ended up just tweaking by ear.

Were you using a vacuum tube voltmeter? Otherwise a standard 20,000 ohms per volt meter will load that circuit and you'll never get it to zero. You could also use a scope set to DC coupling.

[Crist Rigott]

Yes, I was using my VTVM. Next time I'll double check on the DC coupling. I just checked the scope settings and they were on AC coupling. that could have been the problem?