At last,some radios to restore!

[Geaney]

Damage to the top has been repaired and the top is now re-finished.   The weather is not good for spraying so I ended up applying about 5 coats of shellac by hand then sanding up through the grits to a final wet sand with 1200 grit followed by three grades of polishing compound.

Not sure what I'll do for the sides since I can't re-produce the original colour.  Since it looks black from a distance I'll probably go with that.

Cheers,   John
 

[Geaney]

Well my original plan to paint the sides a simple black got misplaced somewhere so now each side has about five coats of tinted shellac followed by six coats of water based lacquer.   The lacquer takes about ten days to cure fully so I polished one side tonight.  I'll do the other side in about a week's time.

I'm happy with how its turning out and, well, if you can't waste time on your hobby where's the point!


Cheers,   John



 

[AlanBeckett]

It looks very swish John. I don't think a dark colour would have been any improvement.

Alan

[Radio Fixer]

Looks very good from the pics John and with refinishing techniques not tried by me. I'm strictly a cellulose lacquer man and use the "artists oil paint method" for toner. Its actually been warm enough for cabinet work lately but I'm not doing any. Still battling through all my Philips Monoknob quirks in the chassis rebuild.

Worryingly my favourite lacquer cans, Mohawk from the US but were available here, are disappearing (no longer stocked by my supplier). I guess its all the 'green thing' and so it will be some 'crappo' water based stuff that doesn't work as well.

Gary

[Geaney]

Hi Gary, the water based stuff has come a long way in the last few years but it is a different approach so definitely needs practice.   I was forced to give up the nitro stuff for health reasons - I react very badly to it now after all the years on guitar projects.

On the topic of availability of US flammable products, the US has progressively been introducing tougher legislation over the last few year that make it increasingly difficult for these products to be shipped outside the US - or by air within the US.   More like the safety folks getting a bit too zealous than the green lobby.  The products can only be imported by sea so for a local supplier the volume needs to be there to make it worth his while.

It's worse in my neck of the woods - I'm pretty much restricted to locally produced products in this category.   There's a decent enough range available but I have to search them out - they're not on my local DIY store shelves!

Luckily, importing the water based stuff is not an issue.

Cheers,   John


     

[Geaney]

Restore now complete - turned out pretty well in the end.  This was definitely the hardest one I've done so far - but definitely one of the most interesting as well.

Cheers,  John

[pwdrive]

Very nice job John.

Lawrence.

[Radio Fixer]

Yes! agreed, looks great.  How's the article coming on for the BVWS Bulletin?

Remember:  You haven't finished the restoration until you have written an article 

Gary

[Geaney]

Hi Gary, alas article is still on my to-do list.  I've booked some vacation in August so hopefully I'll get some downtime then.

For anyone with the bandwidth (and inclination) the last clip of the restore and a quick demo of it scanning the bands is here - 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X_J6a2J29Y

Cheers,   John
  

[Radio Fixer]

Yes! so very Philips but a nice radio now completed.  I must say that the cabinet looks very good with the water based lacquers that I hope never to have to get to grips with.  I have a stock of cellulose that may be enough  ...

The dial on the D57 Monoknob I'm doing, started in the early winter last year, had a much worse dial than yours.  So I redrew it in CorelDraw and had the artwork turned into a silk screen.  Only needed one screen and how I did it is in an article in the Autumn Bulletin.  Far better than sticking films to the glass that would in your case look worse than the original.  What do you stick it with that doesn't show?  Sandwich it between two pieces of glass and it looks wrong optically as you get moire effects.  Not good enough for me.

The old dial even cleaned up was useless as the white backing paint was now opaque:  the glass rod pointer, which is behind, could not be seen apart from the damage to the gold.

   

   

Gary