Emerson 108/AD mini tombstonew

[Dave A]

I picked up a 1938 Emerson 108 (later AD chassis) over the weekend at a community yard sale. The seller wanted it gone. He did some cap work underneath but he was frustrated with it and near gave it away. Yes, the dreaded “curtain burner” mini-tombstone.

The cabinet is mint. Dial is clean. Lamp is good. New grille cloth is not matching the original but fine for display with a unique fix. The back of course is missing. Remarkably, the power cord is like new and has continuity and solid on all three leads. The plug only has two AC connectors but just behind them, the 145ohm resistor cord is tacked in and the braided cover is like new.

At first it did power up and picked up local KYW 1060. Powered down, it might come back. Tubes like new. Poking around on the power side I found all was good per the values. Finally it would not power at all. I found the power switch had given up.

Do I do the many schemes for resistor cord replacement? Not on this one. It is so well preserved and trying to work, I decided to go original. The “curtain burner” is no more warmer than a wire on an electric blanket. The cats and I are safe.

No hope for an original switch so I did the back panel power switch jumper. The old chassis AC punch hole was perfect for a switch. Two connections bypassing the original switch and it was back to life picking up every source of AM interference here. My home AM xmtr was helpful with a full signal for touching up the trimmers. It’s 1938 again...with safety cautions.

[jr_tech]

Great score! these are really cute little radios.

https://www.tuberadioland.com/Emerson108_main.html

jr

[vortalexfan]

Sometimes you can bring those old power switches on those power switch/volume control knob combo controls back to life by spraying some WD-40 into the switch housing flipping the contact back and forth until the contacts start giving you continuity again, and then hosing out the power switch with some contact cleaner and then putting it back together again.

I've done that with a few "dead" power switch/volume control pot combos that wouldn't turn on so I took the power switch off the volume control pot sprayed it down with some WD-40 and then used a small flat blade screwdriver to flip the switch contactor back and forth until it started giving me continuity again when it was flipped into the on position and then I cleaned it out with some contact cleaner and then reassembled the switch back to the volume control pot and then tried it out and it worked fine.