Pye Fenman1 restoration

[Yorkie]

Very good David. Really like the knob fix. Great to have a lathe and the skill to use it.

Gary

Thanks for your encouragement Gary.

I've attached a pic which makes things a bit clearer. There's a pic of the original broken knobs, of which there were four - all in the same state, then the knob with the stem removed and skimmed out on the underside, then the new stem turned from acrylic rod, to be glued into the disc with clear Araldite. That wasn't an unqualified success because when I tightened the grub screws the acrylic cracked, so I turned some more shafts and fitted aluminium sleeves to prevent cracking as the grub screws tightened.

The knobs on the Fenman are a push fit, and I long since learned that whenever access can be gained to the rear of knobs on any make or model of radio, it's always better to gently prise them off from behind, rather than to pull them off from the front. In the case of the Fenman, the complete chassis with the dial attached can be removed from the cabinet and the knobs gently prised off from behind, but in this instance they were already jiggered, so I wasn't able to salvage them. However, the repairs using acrylic rod and aluminium tube aren't visible once reassembled.

I've lost count of the number of times that people have damaged knobs, and sometimes the cabinets, on DAC90As by trying to prise them off instead of removing the grub screws through the holes underneath the cabinet. I've also seen equipment with collet knobs damaged by trying to prise off knobs instead of removing the centre disc and loosening the collet. All a bit basic.