[handsawgeek]

Repairs

I began the project this weekend with repairs…. nothing too exciting here. The first problem I addressed was the lower frame which was falling apart. On the back side of the console cabinet there is a screw block holding a rail to the side of the cabinet. A screw was missing and the rail had come loose.

Check out the huge adjustable double loop AM antenna… going to keep that and use it for the tuner for better AM reception… looking forward to listening to a few baseball games.

All this needed was some glue and a new screw. I glued it up, clamped it in place and installed a new screw…. pretty straight forward.

Next was the top. The veneer was in tough shape and was delaminating here and there.

The top was also separating along a seam of two pieces joined together to form the edge molding.

To repair this I pried the seam apart enough to get a glue injector in there, and glued and clamped it until dry.

I decided instead of trying to repair the veneer on the top, I would replace it instead. So I used a heat gun and putty knife to remove the old veneer…. it was in such bad shape it simply and easily peeled off. Looks like the substrate is poplar…. took a few swipes off that surface with my block plane to clean it up and flatten it.

Very cool project. This looks very similar to an RCA that my folks owned and I remember listening to when I was a kid.

Unfortunately, it saw its demise about 12 years ago when my folks had a really bad sewer backup in their basement. The old radio had to be discarded along with a lot of other stuff because of sewage contamination.
What a shame….

Anyway, I highly anticipate seeing your completed restoration.

 

[handsawgeek]

New Face

This weekend had me working on replacing the face of the console where the tuner is mounted. The old face came out easily… just had to remove about a dozen screws and give it a few taps to loosen it up. It wasn't glued, but the original lacquer finish held it in place some.

Then I had to come up with a way to mount the new radio. I took the new radio out of its case. It came out pretty easily. Just four screws held it together and another pair of screws secured to a pair or retaining clips. I discovered the radio was essentially two parts… the tuner, and the amp. They were held together by four screws that sort of clamped itself together inside the case.

Now knowing how it assembled together, I came up with a way to mount it to the new face using the four screw mounts.

To make the face I began with some scrap ¼" marine plywood I had in the shop and glued a 1/16" thick mahogany veneer to it that was left over from my last project (I need to make myself a veneer press one of these days). This is thinner that the original face, but the marine plywood is better quality and stronger even though its thinner.

Then I trimmed it to size and cut bevels to match the old face and also made a cutout to mount the new radio.

The old face was made with a spline to join the front and top together. This was doable because the face was ⅜" thick. I felt my new face was too thin to use a spline so I put my boat building skills to work and epoxied them together utilizing an epoxy fillet.

First I made a clamping mold.

Then I taped the two pieces together with packing tape that acted as both a hinge and a means to temporarily hold the two pieces together.

Then I applied thickened epoxy to the seam, folded it in place in the mold, clamped it, then applied the epoxy fillet. Note that I also laid down some packing tape to the mold so that I didn't accidentally epoxy the face to the mold.

After curing for 24 hours it came out pretty decent.

That is going to look really sharp when all is said and done. Look forward to seeing the outcome of this project.