Next Additions to My Collection

[Mark R]

John
I am with Gary with the cabinet, looks a nice colour as it is.

cheers Mark

[Geaney]

OK, the team has spoken, light cab it is then

I suppose the other cabs I've done have ended up lighter (PYE P53, etc.) so I'll leave the Minerva as it is in terms of colour tone when it comes to re-finish time.

Cheers, John

[Geaney]

Here's a few shots of the cab repair and speaker re-fit. At least it's all structurally sound at this point. I replaced the top softwood speaker baffle mount with a hardwood strip (had to reduce the thickness with the rotary safety planer bit in the drill press).

The rear upper cross piece was also coming adrift so I re-glued it back in position.

Cheers, John

[Geaney]

I had a quick inspect of the TELL last night. At first I thought I had major damp problems in the cab but it turned out to be what I assume is rust from the chassis but in any case it wiped off to leave the wood intact. There are some problems with the veneer but nothing too drastic.

I've never seen a set with so much screening. Even the tuning condenser is fully encased. The tuning mechanism is pretty unusual - a friction drive which drives the dial which in turn is connected to the tuning condenser. Alas, the mechanism is jammed - will move just about twenty degrees of rotation so it will have to be dismantled to sort it out. Luckily only the two unscreened valves were nicked so the three remaining ones are intact. The Type 80 should be OK to find but the 2A5E will probably be a hassle.

Cheers, John

[Radio Fixer]

I like the Minerva. To me it looks like touch up rather than refinishing, or only partial refinishing (maybe sides, top?). Glad you are going to leep it light and as is.

The Tell is the earlier set and more my era. The total screening is not inusual for a TRF with two or more RF stages.

Below is an extract from a BVWS article I wrote on restoring a Philips Super Indictance set. It hopefully will explain things...

" A reasonable band pass characteristic would be roughly rectanglular in shape of between 6 to 9kHz wide. TRFs sets were trying to achieve this at every tuning position across the wavebands. For the Superhets this was not the case, as all frequencies get converted to the IF and the selectivity is mainly determined at that one frequency. In the early days there was usually a little pre-filtering by either a band pass filter or a tuned RF stage. Eventually, once they were able to make IF strips at a higher frequency, with better second image rejection, these could be dispensed with for cost reduction. The Philips Super Inductance sets have excellent coils and a design that keep a reasonable band pass shape, across the bands, and the best for this, as is to be expected, are the radios that have the two extra coils in a band pass filter .

The Superhet radio chassis can have minimal expense on screening compared to a similar performance TRF one. With a TRF chassis the gain is all at one frequency and typically they tend to be unstable at the high frequency end of the MW band. This is say 1.5mHz; lower down they can be completely stable. With this 638A, for example, it will burp and burble up there, unless the screening is near perfect (more on this later). A Superhet immediately wins, as it only has a small amount of gain at the 1.5mHz before that gets converted to the lower IF. Almost all of the gain comes at this lower frequency.

In summary:

The later and more expensive Super Inductance TRF set had four coils on glass formers in big copper cans. Each section of the tuning gang needed to be screened, and a potentiometer was coupled to it to make for a reasonably constant gain across the bands. The chassis was divided into sections with switch wafers having their own compartment. There is extensive use of screened wiring.

The Superhet radio could have coils on cheap cardboard formers in small aluminium cans. Its tuning gangs could be un-screened with no coupled potentiometer as the IF strip was essentially of constant gain (but modified by AVC action of course). Compartments were dispensed with and the switch wafers used only a piece of metal between them (performance sets) or nothing at all.

Naturally Philips covered themselves and were making a Superhet, the model 588, in 1934 whilst at the same time continuing with the Super Inductance sets. But economics spelt the end of these, wonderful as they are, and by 1936 there were no new models ."

The method of dial drive was often used on US sets of that period. From memory it gives about 30:1 slo mo reduction.

Be really, really careful how you clean the dial ... if immersing in water you may end up with 'letter soup'. Try a letter, a serial no that doesnt show is the best, and go over it with a moist cotton bud as a test

Gary

[Radio Fixer]

Here's where you can get info on the TELL but you have to join. I like it ...looks nice in the pic

http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/paillard_tell_neu.html

Can you find out any history of the company? Where is St. Croix? Not in France is it and imported?

From the same source http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/minerva_minerva_484.html

Looks the same family as yours but Austrian and not Swiss ... nice sets though

Gary

[Geaney]

Hi Gary,

Yes I'm a member of said group thanks to Maitiu. There is a Sainte Croix is up in the Jura mountains pretty close to the border but on the Swiss side. I'll do some hunting to see if I can find any history of the Paillard company.

Cheers, John

[Geaney]

I found a short history of Paillard on the RMorg site. It's all in German so I put it through Google translate and then re-wrote it to what I think it should say. Apologies for any major errors.

Paillard.
Several watch manufacturers in the Ste. Croix area got together to form an export group in 1814 and built their first factory in 1875. The company went public in 1919 and traded as Paillard SA until 1947 encompassing some nine buildings in Ste. Croix and Yverdon.

By 1860 the company had added watch components and music boxes and, by 1880, jukeboxes. In 1897/8 'talking machines' with wax cylinders were added which by 1904 could also record as well as play back. In 1913 Paillard developed the AC electric gramophone motor which became a popular export item. In 1913-1914, under the name Hermes, typewriters were developed and added and the 'Hermes 2000' and later in 1935, the 'Hermès Baby' gained notoriety. From 1927 Paillard built a gramophone amplifier and in 1932 added radio equipment. From 1930 film cameras and projector were added which dominated the market for many years under the Bolex brand name. This business was sold to Eumig in 1969 and remained until 1974. In 1962 Paillard started using the Thorens turntable. Paillard evolved into one of Switzerland's most successful manufacturers of radios and radio / phono combinations. Apart from the tubes - mostly US types during the war years but sometimes mixed US and European types - Paillard made most of the component parts themselves.

At the beginning of the fifties, with the advent of FM reception, Paillard could no longer compete either technically or commercially. Paillard was acquired by Olivetti in 1981 but the company ceased trading in 1989. The Bolex name survived - after the bankruptcy of Eumig in 1982 there was a management buy-out of the 16 mm film camera - range. Bolex International SA, 15 route de Lausanne, CH-1400 Yverdon produced 16 mm film cameras and provided repair services for 8 and 16 mm cameras for the professional market.

Cheers, John

[Geaney]

I had a quick look around the Minerva and posted a clip -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDCmR02npaY

Cheers, John

[Geaney]

..and here's a first look at the TELL -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSQKUPwGeO0

Cheers, John