Stromberg Carlson 1101 restoration - Videokarma.org TV - Video

bandersen · #1 12-02-2011, 01:43 AM

I decided to take a little break from TVs and restore this little AA6 bakelite radio.
I thought it was a model 1200 at first, but when I opened it up I found 6 tubes which makes it an 1101 from 1946 just like this one.

The cabinet has a couple scratches and some odd discoloration near the controls but is otherwise sound.

The chassis looks to be all original except for the tubes.

There is some discoloration and rust on the dial glass and painted backplate from where the pointer sat on AM 720 for probably decades.

The caps have nice Stromberg Carlson labels so i decided to restuff them. I used a heat gun to melt to old cap out and brown hot glue to seal in the new caps.

bandersen · #2 12-02-2011, 02:40 AM

After the recap, I powered it up and got some weak, garbled audio. Time to investigate...

Eventually, I noticed that one lead to the internal loop antenna had broken lose

Much better gain now, but it's still garbled. I tested the one mica cap and found it to be shorted.
Replacing it did the trick - great sensitivity, selectivity and it sounds pretty good

Next, I went through the alignment procedure, and found it didn't really need it.

Finally, I'm going to clean it all up.
I used some glass cleaner and Q-Tips on the glass dial

The metal dial backplate was rusty and discolored form the pointer sitting in the same position for so long. I carefully unmounted it and removed the rust with naval jelly. Than a litte sanding and primer. Once that's dry, I'll used some metallic copper paint.

I also restuffed and repaired the filter cap.

omegaman · #3 12-02-2011, 02:55 PM

Excellent job photo documenting the procedure. Re-stuffing the paper caps is brilliant.

Winky Dink · #4 12-05-2011, 10:59 AM

The history of an old radio is often revealed when you first take out the chassis. It's obvious that this set belonged to, or was repaired by, a Boy Scout.