http://meridian.craigslist.org/atq/1986636926.html

I found this on my local CL. Does anyone know anything about this set? From the front, the CRT looks to have gone to air. If that's the case, it's probably not worth $40.

I suspect that's some kind of smudge or shadow. When a CRT neck breaks, the air smashes straight in, blowing a hole in the center of the phosphor.

Yeah, I think it's just dirt. I'm gonna guess this is from 52-53. Worth the money, I think.

Too bad they don't show the back. You can tell who made it. It's either a Stewart Warner, Warwick, or Arvin. The Arvins were the best.

Well, I just called and left a message. Let's see if they call back. They'll probably call back to inform me that someone bought it to turn into a fishtank.

just curious, for those of you that have been saving old tv's a lot longer that me, when did this nonsense about fish tanks begin?

A TV show from the 90s called Caroline In The City prominently featured a fishtanked console assumed to be a mid 50s Westinghouse in the title character's apartment. It might not have been the first, but it probably had enough visibility long enough to give people ideas....

Back in the '90's, my neighbor would take all the console TV cabinets that I would give her. She was turning them into fishtanks and selling them. Don't worry, nothing I gave her was anything worth a darn. Most of them were '80's/'90's era consoles that had serious issues such as bad CRT's, severe lightning damage, etc.

There was also the Zenith "Super-X" set in the first Grumpy Old Men movie that Walter Matthau's character was horrified to find converted into a fish tank by Ann Margaret's character.

I talked to the owner and he said that everything was in good shape, was their first TV, and had been in his Mother's house it's entire life. I'm supposed to go look at it either tomorrow or Saturday.

Got it! The chassis number is 100.425. Anyone know what the 100 source code stands for?

When I called, the owner's son answered the phone. He said his parents were out of town and that he'd call his Dad to verify that I was supposed to be coming out. I'd planned on trying to get it a little cheaper; but, I decided just to go ahead and give him the $40 and save the confusion of him having to call and ask his Dad, etc. Besides being dirty, the only real cabinet damage is where it looks like someone sat a flower pot on top of the TV.

Pictures later.

radiotvnut. The Sears source code 100 is Stewart-Warner.

Were off to a good start. The 21MP4 CRT test strong, which is a Tung-Sol tube with a '63 date code. At first, it showed near dead; but, cooking it at 8 volts brought it back up.

OK, here are some pictures. The model number is 3185 and there is a date stamp of 3/13/53 inside the cabinet. Like most old sets from this era, the deflection yoke housing is falling apart and the centering rings are dangling on the CRT neck. I did slowly power it up on the variac; but, there was excessive current draw (probably due to bad caps). Had someone plugged this set straight into a 120 volt outlet, they would have probably let the smoke out. Looking at the chassis, this looks like it was one of the better Silvertone sets. I'm sure there are some folks out there who remember working on these sets way back then. Ages ago, I had a Silvertone TV/phonograph combo that, IIRC, used this same chassis.

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff341/radiotvnut/2010_1010silvertone0004.jpg

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff341/radiotvnut/2010_1010silvertone0005.jpg

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff341/radiotvnut/2010_1010silvertone0006.jpg

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff341/radiotvnut/2010_1010silvertone0003.jpg

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff341/radiotvnut/2010_1010silvertone0001.jpg

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff341/radiotvnut/2010_1010silvertone0002.jpg

Wow, that Silvertone held up pretty well over the years! Even being as bargain-priced as these sets were, I'm willing to bet they'd perform a lot better than expected once restored. Speaking of which, it looks like a pretty straight-forward design to work on. I've come to realize that those big speakers used in these old sets really makes a difference in the way they sound compared to most modern televisions. When I first fired up my Zenith with the new audio output transformer, I was delighted with just how surprisingly full and bassy it sounded! Unfortunately, I grew up with televisions that typically sounded very thin and crappy by comparison.

S-W made that chassis for several different customers. Sears, Western Auto, Firestone etc. If you look at it, You'll see that it was built in sections. Also note that the flyback and the yoke plugs in with individual pins for easy replacement. Too bad the H-V cage is missing.

I wonder how hard it would be to find another HV cage. Also, I wonder what the dangers of x-radiation would be if the set is operated without the HV cage?

I'm not familiar with this particular set, but I believe X-ray radiation is generally less a danger with B/W sets than with color, since the HV is not so high. Another purpose of the HV cage is just to keep people's fingers away from what it contains.

If you're not trying to create a museum-quality reproduction, it's not hard to fashion some kind of metal box to replace a missing HV cage. A cheap source of material is old aluminum cake pans from a thrift store. The metal's soft and easy to work with hand tools, which is all I have. You can also buy sheet aluminum or brass from a hobby store.

Phil Nelson

Another idea is the perforated aluminum sheeting used to make radiator covers, etc., available at home centers. Pretty easy to bend up and pop rivet together and makes for good ventilation as well as sheeting. Make up a template by bending up cardboard first and then using that to cut out the aluminum.

I'm not familiar with this particular set, but I believe X-ray radiation is generally less a danger with B/W sets than with color, since the HV is not so high. Another purpose of the HV cage is just to keep people's fingers away from what it contains.

...
Phil Nelson

Some sets need the cage to prevent strong RFI. As you say, X-rays shouldn't be much of an issue.

John