Ekco A104 radio speaker grill.

[boater sam]

There is an A144 for sale now on ebay and that has a plastic speaker fret but a different pattern  from the one I have. It is not shrunken! 
But, the dial surround is silver like mine. So now I am confused as to which is correct, mine 
that is gold inside suggesting  its faded or the A144 one which looks as though it has always been silver.
Can anyone give a definitive answer please?

[AlanBeckett]

There's two actually. The second one looks like yours. Neither looks to have shrunk.
Unfortunately they're both too far away to go and look.

Alan.

[boater sam]

Thanks Alan, I had not seen the other one.
There appears to be two types of fret used by Ekco on both the A104 and A144 models, one like mine 'chip cutter' pattern and one with a horizontal pattern.
But the dial surrounds are the same and they all seem to be silver. So why is mine gold on the back?
I am reluctant to just respray it gold in case its the wrong colour. Perhaps it would look better gold depending on the speaker fret I use.

[Aerodyne]

Both the A144 and the A104 I restored definitely had gold surrounds (quite a palish gold, but gold nonetheless). These were resprayed during the restoration but it is very likely that they both were gold to begin with as I try to keep originality.
If you have a copy of my Crowood 'Vintage Radios' book, both restored models are shown.
Tony

[boater sam]

Thank you for the info Tony. I thought that they would be gold and you saying a palish   gold would seem to confirm that they fade.
It will go gold I think. The silver looks like a cheap 70's Hong Kong toy.

[boater sam]

Antique gold sprayed the dial surround and used a black place mat for a covering for the new front panel filler, ( sprayed the wood first with matt black )
Put it all back together with those weird triangular brackets to hold the dial glass and its surround, screwed the speaker board back in, fitted the speaker and chassis. 
So now its done, total parts used, one grid coupling cap for the output valve, shunted the screen grid resistor to bring it back in tolerance, nesew resistor in the AGC line, and a place mat!
Oh, and a bit of paint and varnish for the cabinet. Its a recovery radio not a complete refurbishment, as much of the original as possible kept. I did check all the other waxies and they were good enough to leave. The electrolytics came up easily.
Found out why the volume would not go all the way down to nought, someone had reversed the 2 screened leads to the volume pot, slider and top end swapped!
A few more pictures follow.

[AlanBeckett]

It looks good. If you changed the Badges it could be a Pye

Alan