Restoring Firestone 4-A-20
 

Matt of matt_s78mn kindly sent me this radio just for the cost of shipping. I love radios that need a lot of work because you get to solve so many problems. First was a crop of tiny tiny black spiders that came with the set! I put it in a garbage bag with some paper towels soaked in starting fluid (ether) and sealed it up overnight. That got all but one (Super Spider!) that I found on the bench but I quickly blotted him/her out.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...restone010.jpg

The cabinet was in rough shape but the chassis appeared to be all there. I decided to work on the cabinet first since this is an AC/DC set with no rare/expensive parts like a burned out power transformer to impede restoration, so I figured it would be easy.

The cabinet was wobbly and loose and some of the side veneer was coming off. The top had veneer damage and I considered repairing that but the plywood of the top was delaminating so I decided to make a new one. A couple of whacks inside with a hammer handle and the old top came off. I reglued the set in a number of places: I think you can see five clamps in one of the pictures.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...somegluing.jpg

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...eregluingB.jpg

I ordered some walnut veneer for it from Rockler so did not mount the top yet as it would be easier to veneer with the top loose. There are some control decals so I took pictures and notes on them and will make my own replacement ones. I stripped the topless cabinet and it looked eminently restorable. The speaker baffle board was delaminating so I made a new one from plywood and painted it black. The reverse paint on the glass dial scale had some big scratches and alligatoring in the paint so I cleaned the front of it and the back very carefully as best I could, scanned it, and put it away safely. I'll deal with making a reproduction later. To be continued...

Wow - that's quite an undertaking :thmbsp:

I'll be watching how you tackle that veneer with great interest. I have some sets that need the same work done.

(Pictures had temporarily disappeared but they are back.)

In between if the weather gets colder or raining and less conducive to cabinet work I'll work on the chassis. The speaker cone looks great: to keep them that way I always fasten a piece of cardboard over them to keep from sticking my fingers through the cone.. The tuning cap was dirty so blasted it well with CRC Electronic Cleaner. Five of the six tubes test good. They are mixed brands with the sole Firestone Air Chief 35Z5 probably original.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...egroupB029.jpg

The 500K volume control had been replaced at one point but in order to get a split splined shaft the tech sort of kludged together the shaft off the old control onto the body of a build-a-control (think that's the name) where you can install your choice of shaft type. He didn't have the right part and made do.. The mechanical connection was iffy at best. J-B Weld to the rescue and the control works as it should.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...earchassis.jpg

The chassis is really crammed tight: they could have increased the size of it by an inch or two in both directions and made it much easier, and cheaper for them (and me) to wire. The chassis is lost in the cabinet with plenty of room all around it. As such I knew I was going to have to replace some components not in the neatest way that I would have liked to. Doing it perfectly would mean yanking some of the coils and I didn't want to do that. Look below: the filter can terminals are buried just behind the volume control. They had to build this thing in layers.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...egroupB011.jpg

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...egroupB010.jpg

Since real estate under the chassis is so tight, I also decided to restuff the topside can. This took a little more heart surgery. Lots of fun making a drawing of where all the wires go and then getting the can out. Since this won't show I just hacksawed the base off the can. Funny: the guts pulled out of the can actually smelled like a cow barn. The can is isolated from the chassis with a phenolic mounting wafer and has a cardboard sleeve over it. It all went back together nice and easy. Note that the can looks original but is a shorty inside a taller outer sleeve. Odd. You can look down inside the open top tall sleeve and see the can top down in there.
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...restoneCan.jpg

Wow that's crammed!

Given that the new caps will be a lot smaller it should look a lot cleaner under neath.

I enjoy watching your restoration progress. Sorry about the spider infestation!

Re: spiders: how could you know? They were really tiny little buggers just hatched out, smaller than pinheads. No big deal. Maybe I should have kept SuperSpider and bred him/her up to eat more bugs.

You horrible awful person, you...Spider MURDERER !!! (grin) Can't wait to see this beauty brought back from the dead ! Good show !

Now you got me worried: big spiders chomping at me in nightmares, aaaaarrrgghhhh!!

Yard work today, more later on the radio.

I was not going to say anything but it looks like you have a snake in there too ;-)

That area under the chassis by the volume pot sure is crammed..and all those paper caps too! You'll be making quite a roadmap to get every component back to it's proper place!

I restored a Philco 40-115 that was not only crammed but had the dreaded crumbling wire in it too. I started the process from one end and worked my way to the other..

It was a fun project and it's a good player! The cabinet needed some minor attention (thankfully)....that's where my skills need to improve..

I'm glad you're taking this one on..it will be nice!!

Since it's a six-tuber (AA5+1) and no three-gang tuning cap, what are they using the extra tube for?

I like working on transformerless radios for the same reason: no worries about power transformers, many of which are very difficult to find today for vintage radios. I have three transformerless vintage sets in my collection right now -- all Zenith: H511, MJ1035, C845. I don't know if the MJ1035 counts as a "transformerless" set, since it uses a filament transformer wired in parallel with two series filament strings; however, the B+ is derived from the AC line.

I also have a question about filter caps. My Zenith MJ-1035 has a very loud 60-Hz AC hum which I am sure is caused by the 3-section power supply filter capacitor going sour (if it is, it wouldn't surprise me since this radio is 45 years old). Would it be possible or practical to replace just the "guts" of the original filter cap with modern, smaller caps? I know you're doing just that with your Air Castle set, but I'm wondering if it is even cost-effective to undertake the same project on a much newer radio. Also, I wonder just how I'm going to be able to get at the terminals on the 3-section filter, as they seem to be blocked by at least one layer of underchassis wiring. I have visions of having to disconnect dozens of wires, components and such just to get to the capacitor. Of course, if I can work from the top of the chassis and remove the capacitor's innards at that level (leaving the underchassis wiring as it is), it will make the repair a lot easier.

BTW, I know all too well what you mean regarding working on radios with problems. I like working on those as well, but when the problem is very difficult to find, then the job starts grating on me. My Zenith MJ1035 is a case in point. The radio works extremely well from an RF sensitivity standpoint, as it will pull in stations for miles around using just a 6-foot length of wire on the antenna terminal. However, the audio is extremely weak, and I think the volume control may be open. I can tell the radio is pulling in signals, as the stereo FM indicator light illuminates on just about every station the set picks up (most of the FM stations in my area, 35 miles from downtown Cleveland, broadcast in stereo).

I haven't done much with the radio lately, but I might power it up later today to see if it is still working at the level I just described. I notice that the case of the volume control is supposed to be grounded (such a ground is shown on the schematic diagram), but on my set the ground is missing; therefore, my first step in eliminating the loud hum I mentioned will be to re-establish that connection. It wouldn't surprise me if that eliminated or at least minimized the hum. I'd like to avoid doing anything with the filter cap unless it is absolutely necessary because, as I mentioned, it is likely to be a very involved and messy job with all that wiring directly in front of the terminals, looking directly at the bottom of the chassis. I can't help wondering what Zenith's R&D guys had in mind when they designed the MJ1035 this way--did they think the filter would probably last at least 50 years (!), so they made it darn near impossible to replace if or when the cap goes bad? After all, we VKers know it is more a question of when, rather than if, a filter cap will fail, especially in very old equipment. If Zenith's R&D boys thought the filer caps in these radios would last forever, they were very sadly mistaken, although I haven't read much here in this forum regarding replacement of filter capacitors in any of Zenith's high-end tube radios of the 1940s-'60s, including the MJ1035. Were the caps in Zenith's higher-end sets meant to last years or decades longer than those in the company's cheaper sets, including small AA5 table models? I'm asking this because my Zenith H511, now 59 years old (!), is still working very well and still has its original 3-section filter cap--no noticeable hum yet. Were the caps better made 60 years ago than they were by the 1960s? Another example: My late grandmother had a Sears Silvertone table model radio made in 1936. The radio, long gone by now, still worked well 40 years later, with its original filter caps. The only thing wrong with it, and I mean the only thing, was that the power cord was bad and needed to be replaced, as the insulation was crumbling and there were bare spots, making the cord a safety hazard. The set was unceremoniously discarded shortly after my grandmother died, and the cottage the radio was in (her summer getaway) was sold; the new owner of the place obviously didn't know or care beans about antique or vintage radios or even had the germ of an idea how much that particular radio would have been worth today.

However, again I wonder. Were capacitors made to last decades in the '30s? :scratch2: If so, their quality has really taken a nosedive in the last seventy-plus years, as the small filter caps and other underrated components used in today's electronic devices often go bad within a year or two, if they last that long.

Phew, yard work all day, mowed, trimmed, blower, went and bought and planted a few tomato, pepper, and eggplant plants, dug out some weeds along a fence, and am now cleaned up and collapsing in front of the magic television/typewriter.

Rollei35guy, I killed the radio snakes, too. No longer required. I've got something to say about that, too: the snakes were on the power cord leads. Notice that the self-grommeted hole for the power cord is right back of the first audio tube, one of the most sensitive spots for hum pickup. When I put my new power cord on, I used a UL knot inside the rear chassis apron and then twisted the two leads and routed them around the side of the chassis passing the 35L6 and the 35Z5 until reaching the switch and the terminal on the rectifier. You want to keep your AC power wiring away from audio inputs. The cord I used was polarized so I put the hot lead on the switch.

marty59, yeah, it's really tight working in there. I took plenty of pictures and made myself sketches. I have another radio, an RCA 28T, almost finished, that was full of crumbling yellow rubber wiring. I had to replace 99% of that and some was in really tight places. Big 8-tube table set with push-pull audio. Had to unfasten a scary-looking unobtainable-if-you-screw-it-up shortwave coil and swing it out of the way at one point. Work around a multi-gang band switch sweatin' coconuts.

On this Firestone, there is a 3-gang tuning cap, just not visible in my picture. The first tube in line is a 12SK7 and it's the RF amp. It's only used for the broadcast band, however; is out of the circuit for short wave.

Jeffhs, some of the wet electrolytics from the '30's if they haven't been abused by a short somewhere, or if they haven't dried out, may still work OK. Ditto some of the big paper caps used in the late '20's for filters before electrolytics became more common/cheaper. I've heard it was because of the good paper they used. Supposedly later on, the paper used was prone to deteriorate.

However, wax dipped paper caps and of course the infamous black beauties eventually become leaky. The thought was that wax was impervious to moisture: it isn't. But the ceramics that Zenith liked to use fifty years ago, and orange dips when they came along and "yellas" that we use a lot now should be a lot more reliable than the old wax firecrackers. No paper in 'em.

All that being said, it's a crap shoot as to when a paper or electrolytic cap that has been playing merrily along decides to die. I've had them do that right in front of me and maybe some of you guys have, too. Was playing one chassis while working on another and the working set all of a sudden sputtered and maxed out on hum and I yanked the cord. Paper cap underneath had puked its waxy little guts out. Once had an electrolytic pop, too, and hum went right up to the top. It's best to replace them.

If there's room on top of the chassis to somehow cut the filter can open and scoop out the guts, you could restuff it with new caps. You can't solder to the terminals that come up through the phenolic wafer, though; they're aluminum. You have to drill a hole or holes in the wafer and run your wires down and solder them to the terminals underneath, which are normal tinned terminals staked to the aluminum stubs. It would probably be easier, which is what I do when possible, to mount a terminal strip under the chassis and put the new electrolytics there, leaving the old can in place for looks. The terminal strip doesn't have to be right by the old can if there's no room there.

Back on the job, replaced the paper caps and this opened up a lot more breathing space. It was tough making some of the connections: terminals were buried and full of wires, so I resorted in a lot of cases to making "squibs," or whatever you want to call them, where you curl the wire from the new cap into a spiral to slip onto a stub from the old cap left on the terminal and solder it. If you're making a lot of these you can make a tool which is just a piece of wood or dowel about 1/2" in diameter and about 6 or 8" long, with a couple of brads stuck into the end of it. The wire is guided around the central headless brad by the other brad offset from the center. I'm too lazy to make a tool so I just loosely curled the wire from the new cap around the wire from the old one (so I know it will fit over the stub from the old one.) Finally I use pliers to stack the coils together and then snip off the end sticking out. On the right is circled an example of one of these connections. The big blob of a terminal carrying the stub of the old cap is original. I wasn't going to dig into that Gordian Knot...

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...estoneSqib.jpg
I ohmed out all the coils just to be sure because some of them are wound with "hair" wire. All but one checked OK. The one open coil is shown below in before and after condition. This coil is wound on a machine and there is no way to rewind it perfectly. The way I checked it was to connect an ohmmeter to one coil terminal and then probe along the side of the coil windings with a fine sewing needle alligator-clipped to the other ohmmeter probe. I found continuity about a third of the way in from the outside. Nothing to do but unwind the coil to find the break.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...foreafterA.jpg

I made a sketch showing where all the wires connected and then pried out the mounting clip and removed the coil from the chassis. I put a box on the floor and carefully started unwinding the coil, allowing the wire to pile up loosely in the box. The fine wire was enamel-coated and also served with a thin (probably cotton) covering, so if there was a break anywhere it was going to be hard to see because the serving tended to hold any break together. Every few layers unwound I stopped and carefully scraped to bright copper in the wire and tested looking for continuity. Finally about a third of the way in I found the break, sure enough with the cotton holding it together (like a "green stick" break.) I scraped the wires, twisted them, and soldered them back together.

Then I started rewinding the coil. I tried to do it as neatly as I could by hand but hoped for the best. I had a light-colored wax candle going and every now and then I'd drip some wax onto the coil to hold it. Finally got to the end and reinstalled it and wired it up. It ain't pretty but ought to work, because this coil is in the plate circuit of the RF amp and serves to transfer the signal to the next stage. I'm guessing that maybe a plate current surge popped the wire, or just the hand of fate. It is not a tuned coil so the fact that the inductance and Q may have changed by rewinding it should not matter much. Cross fingers.

Here's the chassis with its new "yella" caps.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...pedcropped.jpg

Makes a big difference with those new caps. Nice job!

Those multi-wire connections are fun to try to untangle. I like the "squibs" idea. I've had to untangle a bunch of these globs on the hallicrafters (and others). The last fellow would just heat up the joint push the new wire through and clip it off. Easier to undo I suppose.

I think Antique Electric Supply has replacements for that oscillator coil if it gives you trouble.

On a more "important" radio I might try to unravel the terminals and start fresh, maybe even restuff caps, rather than use these little corkscrews. Using them, though, can avoid twisting and wrecking some fragile terminal, like on a tube socket or coil.

The coil that had the open is just an untuned transformer between the RF amp and the oscillator/converter, so should be OK.

The rubber-insulated wires to the primary of the output transformer were crumbling, so I replaced them with same-colored new wires right at the transformer, with the soldered joints covered with heat-shrink tubing, and the wires bundled out of the way of the 35Z5 with a couple of mini wire ties. Note that this has negative feedback off the voice coil heading back to G2 of the first audio tube. This tends to cancel out some distortion, a nice touch and not expected in such a radio. Also note the shorty 'lytic cap hiding down inside the cardboard tube.
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All the caps in, line cord ready, time to plug in the tubes and turn it on. Nothing! :saywhat: Neither dial light nor tubes light up. All the tubes were previously tested good. Suspect bad switch. Get the voltmeter. Nope, line voltage gets through the switch, but it doesn't get to where the line from the radio side of the switch goes, which is to the can of the electrolytic. That wire fastens to a can lug with several other wires and the solder didn't get down to it. I retouched with the iron and reflowed the solder and gave it another try. She plays, and not bad! :banana::beerchug: I got BC stations across the dial, and with a short antenna, a station and some other typical SW noise on the other band, all in the middle of the afternoon. I touched up the I.F's and the RF and ANT sections of the tuning cap, and this turns out to be a hot little radio with that RF stage. Up and down the dial it's full of very listenable signals.

You won't get much on shortwave in the middle of the afternoon regardless how good your antenna may be, especially on the one SW band your Air Castle set tunes. I would wait until after sunset and preferably after dark before looking for anything on the SW band; this is when most of the shortwave bands perk up and the DX (ham radio shorthand for distance) reception starts rolling in--however, I just looked at the pic of the front of your set a minute ago and saw that the one SW band it tunes is from nine to 15+ MHz. This range includes the 20-meter amateur radio band (which begins at 14 MHz); this band is often wide open in the afternoon, and some good DX can be had, although a lot of the signals you will hear will be SSB (single sideband) and CW (Morse code), requiring an external oscillator, called a BFO or beat-frequency oscillator, to make them readable.

A note on antennas: A short indoor wire antenna will bring in some signals on the SW band, but for the best results an external, outdoor wire antenna at least 50 feet long should be used.

What station were you hearing after you got your Air Castle radio working? There is a time and frequency station in Boulder, Colorado called WWV, that operates on several different frequencies, all with 1 kW transmitters in the shortwave bands, including one (15 MHz) well within the range of the SW band on your radio. The station uses tone signals and a ticking clock, with an identification signal just before the time announcement: "This is radio station WWV, Fort Collins, Colorado, broadcasting on internationally allocated standard carrier frequencies on 2.5, 5, 10, 15 and twenty megahertz, providing time of day, standard time intervals and other related information. . . . Inquiries regarding these transmissions may be directed to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Radio Station WWV, 2000 East County Road 58, Fort Collins, Colorado 80524." WWV provides exceedingly accurate time signals, so if you want to set your clocks as close as possible to the absolutely correct time, this is the place to find it.



BTW: Your success with that Air Castle radio has me wanting to get into my Zenith MJ-1035 AM/FM stereo radio to see if I can't get it singing as it used to...and should. I was lying awake in bed last night thinking about that, and made up my mind that I was going to pull the chassis the next morning (today) to see what needs to be done. But, darn it, other things got in the way today--wouldn't you know it! Oh well; maybe I'll at least look at the underside of the chassis tonight before I go to bed. I have a feeling that the problem is caused by one of two things: a missing ground on the case of the volume pot, the wiper contact inside the control isn't making contact with the carbon track, or perhaps it's both. As I said in my last post, though, I like working on these sticky problems as long as they don't get too sticky. I honestly don't think this will be too much of a problem to correct, unless the trouble is someplace else other than in the area around that 2-meg volume pot.

Yeah, I want to play this little Firestone Air Chief (not Castle) for a few days to dry it out before doing a real alignment on it. Only now we're due for several days of cold and rain :no: so I may just train a reflector lamp on the chassis to keep it warm. The weather also puts a damper on any cabinet finish work for a while (and my outdoor yard/pool cleanup activities.) Maybe I'll start capping another chassis.

Back working on the cabinet again, I got the veneer from Rockler. It was rolled up in the box and had some ripples and splits, which is often to be expected with the thin "raw" veneer with no backing. In order to flatten it I painted it both sides with a solution of one part glycerin (drug store,) one part denatured alcohol, and three parts water. Then I clamped it overnight between boards with several layers of paper towels on both sides of the veneer. Next day I changed the towels and left again for several hours. It came out "ironed" pretty flat.

I laid the plywood top on it and traced around it. I cut out the veneer with scissors and utility knife oversize so it could be trimmed exactly after installation. Then I painted the wrong side of the veneer and the top of cabinet top with three coats of slightly thinned yellow wood glue, allowing to dry between coats, and then to dry overnight.

Next day I put the veneer and plywood top dried glue sides together and pressed with a medium-hot iron using a piece of brown paper between the iron and veneer. You have to press hard all over and keep moving the iron. It works! The veneer stuck nicely. Unfortunately there was a little split down the middle of the veneer that didn't close up, but I later filled it with some Elmer's colored wood filler and it looks like it almost disappeared. I sanded and shaved and fit the new top onto the radio cabinet and finally glued and clamped it into place. Then the whole cabinet was sanded and grain filled (another overnight wait), sanded again and stained with a mix of cherry and dark walnut.
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...egroupB024.jpg
Next was a spray of three coats of Deft Sanding Sealer, which dries fast. Now it was time to place the decals. These I made by a process using a special decal paper and embossing powder. You make up a design or text on the computer and then print on this paper using the best print setting, to get the most ink on the paper. The surface of the paper is such that the ink doesn't dry fast. As soon as it comes out of the printer, you pour on embossing power in the desired color, in this case, gold. The powder sticks to the ink. Then you pour off the excess powder back into the container for further use. The decal goes into the toaster oven set to broil. At some point the murky blackish powdery text magically turns to gold. The text has a slightly raised surface, like some business cards (made by a similar process, I believe.) The first picture below shows the finished decals before cutting apart.
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w.../Decals006.jpg
Here are the decals applied.
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w.../Decals004.jpg

Wow the cabinet looks amazing. Can you please explain how you get the new decals from the paper onto the cabinet?

Wow...Dat's PURDY !!

Thanks. I still have some toning and further lacquer work to do on the cabinet. Not happy with the "overall" sort of same color effect.

The decals are waterslide type. The decal paper has a thin clear film, then a thin layer of glue, and finally a paper backing. Once the text is fused by heat onto the clear layer, I've found it easier to work with if it's misted with a little clear Deft and let dry, otherwise the film is too flimsy to manage, especially on larger decals. Then the individual words are cut out. Now you've got a rectangle with the word centered in it. With just a touch of dish detergent on your finger as a wetting agent, you dip your finger in water and wet the panel area where the decal is to go. Then dip the cut out decal in water for 2 seconds and wait about 20 seconds at which point you can start to slide the film around on the paper backing. This is the tricky part: now you edge the film onto the watery surface of the panel and ease the paper out from under it. Using fingers and a soft artist's brush, nudge the film around into position. Everthing is sopping wet at this point. If you're not careful the film will buckle: it's strong but easy to screw up. If it does buckle or wrinkle you can smooth it out with the brush. Once in position let it set up a bit and meanwhile dry up the water around the decal with a paper towel, but don't touch the decal yet or it will move. If you bump it out of position you can drip more water on it and still move it. Little by little you can gently dry the decal and use the brush to "paint" out any water or bubbles under the film. Phew! Brain surgery. I let it dry for a day and then continue with my finish coats of Deft Gloss on the whole set, which also protects the decals.

I was pretty good with decals on model cars 25 years ago...this sounds pretty much like the same process.

Damp weather today: no lacquer work possible, so on to the knobs. The radio came with only one original knob, shown at the right in the first picture. The other three knobs were the closest that Mike Koste had out of the thousands and thousands he brought to the Kutztown radio meet earlier this month. These knobs had stamped legends on them, a little hard to see in the picture, the originals did not. In the picture I have already sanded off the legend and the whole top of one of the knobs. I did the same with the other two and then chucked a piece of 1/4 dowel in the drill, pushed on a knob, and held a rag with auto polishing compound against it while spinning the knob. I was careful not to go too fast for fear of overheating the plastic. When they were smooth I spun them in another rag with brass polish. Then the fluted sides got treatment with a cotton buffing disk in the drill.
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...stoneKnobs.jpg

Still kinda humid around here and got real hot, but better weather is predicted for later in the week. Since I can't do lacquer work, I decided to tackle something I've been putting off: the scratched up dial scale. It's on glass and is painted on the back. I'm going to work on this scan and try to recreate it on the computer. You can see it's a mess.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...canReduced.jpg

I recreated the old dial just using common techniques in MS Paint. It could have been easier and better looking if I had some more advanced graphics program, but I think it turned out OK. Whaddaya think? I left some of the working artifacts on the drawing. It's redder than the scanned dial, but pictures of the dial show it more red. Now the proof of it is going to be how it might print onto the transparent sticker material I got at Staples. The white portions of the drawing will print clear on the transparency. If that works, I will sandwich it between a white translucent plastic on the back, with a cutout to reveal the dial pointer, and clear acrylic on the front.
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...2RECREATED.jpg

Substitute "UnAmerican" for "foreign" on that dial... :D

Ooops! My bad. I don't know why I was thinking "Air Castle" when I wrote my reply to your post, when the dial on your radio clearly shows "Air Chief" across the top above the AM tuning scale.

These older radios can be a challenge to restore to past glory but, in most cases, if you're willing to work at it, the project is worth the effort. I have a Zenith C845 that uses a 6BJ6 as an RF amplifier tube on AM and FM, two IF stages, a limiter stage that acts as a third IF...and it is one of the most sensitive sets I have ever owned. I can get stations up and down the East Coast and into the Great Lakes at night (though I have yet to hear any stations from Wisconsin) using the built-in Wavemagnet AM antenna; the FM is just as sensitive, pulling in stations from 70+ miles away when the conditions are favorable. I live near Lake Erie (within a mile of the southern shore) and, in spring, summer and early fall, often hear FM stations on this radio from Detroit, Windsor, Canada, Toledo and Youngstown, Ohio, and Pittsburgh--often with very listenable signals.

I know how it is to have other projects get in the way of hobbies. I live in a small apartment, but I still have things to do here that often take precedence over my vintage radios and amateur radio activities. First things first. The hobbies can wait, but when one has things to do elsewhere, the latter have to be taken care of first before one can even think about spare time stuff, which reminds me--as soon as I finish typing this, I have a couple of things I need to attend to before it gets dark (I hate having to work in darkness--really; I get into trouble, meaning falling and other accidents, if I try to walk around or work in poor lighting or, heaven forbid, pitch darkness).

Good luck with your Air Chief radio; it should work great once you get it in A-1 shape--that RF amplifier stage means it was built for DX, and as I said in my first reply, with a good antenna, it should pull in stations on both AM and shortwave like crazy. I don't know much about these radios except that they were products of the Firestone Company of Akron, Ohio in the late 1940s-'50s. For example, one thing I don't know about Firestone radios, but wish I did, was who actually built these sets, radios and later TVs. Firestone was a rubber company, noted for their automobile tires; I honestly don't know how the name became associated with radio or television. :scratch2:

Firestone had a nice little chain of retail stores starting in the 40s. Some of the toys that I got as a kid (tricycle for one) came from the local Firestone store. :thmbsp:

"The 1940s saw the emergence of the Firestone Home & Auto Store — a store concept of a one-stop retailer offering everything from automotive services and tires to large household appliances, televisions, toys, bicycles, lawnmowers and even outboard motors with the Firestone name brand affixed. The evolution of the retail stores continued with Firestone Complete Car Service opening in the 1960s offering expanded diagnostic under-car and under-hood service."
From:
http://www.bridgestone-firestone.com...bout/bfrc_cobg

They also sold their own brand of cool looking sparkplugs (pix#1)
(a person can't just collect radios, you know :D)
jr

Thanks, Jr. Tech, you beat me to it. I remember seeing Firestone car batteries, and some folks who lived near us had a Firestone refrigerator. NostalgiaAir refers some Firestone radio models to Stewart-Warner. Not sure in this case but sometimes with "store brand" sets the seller contracted with various manufacturers from year to year.

That's some really nice work! What did you you use for grain filler? I've tried Behlen water based filler a couple times and I'm not that happy with it. I've also used Shellac, but that requires loads of sanding.

You've really got me thinking with that embossing powder. I have several cabinet that were refinished by someone else that obliterated the gold decals. I was considering having custom decals made but that's really expensive. What powder did you use and where did you get it ?

Thanks.

Thanks. The grain filler is Bartley Paste Wood Filler, "Dark." I got it at a woodworking store some years ago. I recently read about coloring and using plaster of paris, which sounds interesting and fast drying. The stuff I used has to dry overnight.

The powder is called Stamp Stuff embossing powder, I used "Pirate Gold" color. Got it at Michael's crafts store. The decal paper came from

http://www.supercaldecals.com/

I ordered the clear. For inkjet printers only. I'd recommend a new black cartridge if yours is kinda iffy.

The way I work it to conserve the paper is to come up with my designs by trying various fonts, etc. Then I print out in black on a piece of plain paper. Then I cut out a piece of the decal paper and carefully tape it all around over the part of the plain paper previously printed. Rub the paper all over with a dryer sheet to cut down static. Then feed it back into the printer so that it will print onto the decal paper this time. Set the printer for best quality print and for photo paper. When it comes out immediately pour the powder over it. Let sit for fifteen seconds. Pour powder off and back into the bottle. A bottle of this stuff will last a long time. Use a small soft brush and brush off the remaining powder from the decal or else you'll have little gold speckles on your decal.

Now you heat the powder. Some use a heat gun. I used the toaster oven set to broil, heat from above. Watch carefully and the gold will appear. There is some happy medium between too much and too little time in the heat. I had to experiment with a number of decals to arrive at my best results. They need to have a thin spritz of lacquer before cutting them out to make them more manageable.

I already described how to apply them. I had to experiment there, also, to get best results. If you PM me some words you want and font (I used Arial Western 16 point on the ones for this set) and font size, I'll be glad to make you some N/C since I'm all set up to do it with more material than I'll probably ever use. That goes for anybody else needing to finish a set.

I'm going to be in Texas for about ten days so can't get back on this radio or anything until after that. Coming down the home stretch on it, though, I hope.

PS: I can even make decals of brand logos if there's something on the web to go by.

Well I'm finally getting down to the end on this radio! There were a lot of tough spots to work through and recreating the damaged dial was no exception. If you recall from earlier pictures, the reverse-painted glass dial had areas where the paint had been scratched off and some of the paint was alligatoring. I reproduced the dial (painfully!) using MS Paint and intended to print it on a translucent peel-off label product that I bought, but the image looked washed out and the resulting large "sticker" was very hard to handle. I ended up printing it on good inkjet photo paper and cutting out with a sharp blade the two horizontal lines where the moving dial pointer shows through. I cut two pieces of clear acrylic of the sort used for storm doors, etc., and sandwiched the photo between them. The edges were then sealed like King Tut's tomb with strips of aluminum HVAC tape. That stuff is made to last in hot attics for decades so oughta do OK here. Here's the dial before mounting it. The pencil behind it shows how the pointer will be seen.
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...created002.jpg

Since it's an AC/DC set, with a capacitor and high-value resistor from line to chassis, I wanted to make the set a bit more safe. I got some nylon bolts and J-B welded some metal nuts to match over the existing underchassis mounting tabs. The nylon bolt heads are exposed underneath the radio. Found some thick round felt pads at Lowe's and stuck on under the four corners. I installed an .01 mfd cap in the line that goes to the external antenna connection. Finally I made a back for the set from 1/8" masonite: six 1" dia. holes with a holesaw in the drill press, and some saber saw work. Now there is no exposed metal that could go live or give a tingle.
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...oneback004.jpg

Weren't there safety standards for AC-DC radios (Underwriters Labs, et al.) when this Firestone set was new? :scratch2: If not, IMHO, there should have been, as some of these older AC-DC sets (especially those in metal cabinets, such as Arvin's model 540T, et al.) could pose a real hazard if the line plug was inserted in the socket a certain way (i. e. so the chassis is hot). I would think your Firestone radio would have been designed from the start with isolation networks, etc. so that there is nothing in the radio to create a shock hazard.

I hate to say it, but my Zenith H511 5-tube set from 1951 doesn't seem to have any kind of isolation network between the line cord and the chassis either. When were radio manufacturers required to design safety features into AC-DC sets? I can't believe this type of radio was in production so long (since the '40s if not earlier) without having protection against electric shock (except, perhaps, for plastic knobs and/or cabinets). I cannot begin to imagine how many people were shocked, injured or killed by these poorly-designed radios (from a safety standpoint), although some of these accidents could have been avoided had the radio been used in dry areas and not, for example, in a bathroom. I read in an old appliance-repair book some years ago of an incident involving an AC-DC radio that was being used in a bathroom, while the owner was taking a shower. He reached out to turn up the volume or tune in another station, the radio fell off the shelf it was sitting on, and fell into the water; the fuse protecting the bathroom circuit immediately blew. I read of another incident (in the same appliance repair book) in which a young mother was giving her baby a bath in the kitchen sink, with a plugged-in electric frying pan nearby. The child started waving its arms around wildly, got caught in the cord, and pulled the appliance into the water. Needless to say, the baby was killed instantly.

Chassis is in the cabinet, felt washers under the knobs, all done. I plugged it in and tuned around for some music. The first thing I hit was Frank singing "You make me feel so young." It was like the radio was singing that to me! Go back and have a look at how sad it was in the beginning. Again thanks to Matt for sending it to me. Finally came to the end of the long, long Firestone road. Hope y'all enjoyed the trip as much as I did. :wave:

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...nished2001.jpg

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...nished2003.jpg

That looks really killer!

Beautiful job :thmbsp: That new veneer and finish really turned out nice.