Old Muntz TV for sale Locally to me, Should I pick it up?

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by decojoe67

Whether Meck, Muntz, or Philharmonic, they were all budget TV's. These secondary companies sales edge was making them seem like bargain through bare-bones electronics. The funny thing is these sets often perform just fine. Today, as a collectible, these more unusual sets appeal to collectors more than the popular named sets. I have a friend who owns a 7" combo console Philharmonic. It looks pre-war. It'll be one of the last TV sets he parts with!

Meck made TV's with other private labels too. Spiegel's Aircastles and even those so-called custom sets badged Radio-Craftsman.
Meck bought the E.H. Scott radio name in the late 40's or early 50's.

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

Meck made TV's with other private labels too. Spiegel's Aircastles and even those so-called custom sets badged Radio-Craftsman.
Meck bought the E.H. Scott radio name in the late 40's or early 50's.

Ok that makes sense as to why it would be a Meck and have the E. H. Scott Philharmonic name plate on it.

[vortalexfan]

OK so I was finally able to get the chassis out of my Meck/Philharmonic TV and repopulated the chassis with known good tubes from my tube stash and plugged it in to test it out and when I turned the TV on all of the tubes including the Picture tube started glowing but then a few seconds later the 5U4G Rectifier tube for the power supply starting sparking and arcing inside so I quickly turned it off and unplugged it.

Any ideas as to what could be causing the arcing 5U4G Rectifier tube? thats the only tube in the whole TV that was arcing the rest of the tubes were working fine.

I did notice that the Power supply filter caps (which are in a cardboard can) was snapped off from its phenolic wafer that held it to the chassis (the phenolic mounting wafer that the capacitor can was mounted to itself was snapped off from the chassis not the capacitor can itself).

[vortalexfan]

Here are some pictures of the chassis of this TV showing the Tubes.

[Electronic M]

It is super obvious. You shouldn't have to ask. One or more of the lytics is almost certainly shorted.

Most sets made before the mid 60s will not work or eventually kill themselves if all the lytics and paper caps are not changed.
The only reason to power up before a recap is on the off chance it works you have a baseline to see if you make a mistake and add a new problem when you recap it immediately after.

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

It is super obvious. You shouldn't have to ask. One or more of the lytics is almost certainly shorted.

Most sets made before the mid 60s will not work or eventually kill themselves if all the lytics and paper caps are not changed.
The only reason to power up before a recap is on the off chance it works you have a baseline to see if you make a mistake and add a new problem when you recap it immediately after.

Well I was trying to power it up to see what kind of working order it was in. I figured it was going to need new capacitors but I wasn't sure.

[Kevin Kuehn]

Originally Posted by vortalexfan

Here are some pictures of the chassis of this TV showing the Tubes.

How does the underside of the chassis look? The top shows signs of having been a rodent hotel at one time.

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by Kevin Kuehn

How does the underside of the chassis look? The top shows signs of having been a rodent hotel at one time.

This TV as I had stated previously had sat in an old abandoned farm house that its roof had collapsed on it 20 years prior and the TV sat in those conditions for 20 years prior to it being found by the person I had gotten the TV from.

The TV's Cabinet is actually in immaculate condition and was just really dirty despite it sitting in the conditions it had sat in for as long as it had, the undercarriage of the TV is also extremely clean for the conditions the TV had sat in.

Unfortunately the Westinghouse Radio I had gotten from the same person which came out of the same place wasn't so lucky and its cabinet was trashed but oddly enough even inspite of a little rust on the chassis (which cleaned right off with some #00 grade steel wool) the radio still worked flawlessly.

Unfortunately it seems that finding the correct knobs for this TV is going to be quite tricky even with fleabay, which I found a few knobs on there that looked like a close match to the original Channel Selector knob and volume/on/off switch but nothing exactly like the original knobs, and also there didn't seem to be any channel selector escutcheons for sale on fleabay like the one I needed.

[judge]

Originally Posted by vortalexfan

Unfortunately it seems that finding the correct knobs for this TV is going to be quite tricky even with fleabay, which I found a few knobs on there that looked like a close match to the original Channel Selector knob and volume/on/off switch but nothing exactly like the original knobs, and also there didn't seem to be any channel selector escutcheons for sale on fleabay like the one I needed.

Post a WTB on antiqueradios.com, with pictures of what they should look like if you can. I've found some knobs I never expected to be able to get that way!

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by judge

Post a WTB on antiqueradios.com, with pictures of what they should look like if you can. I've found some knobs I never expected to be able to get that way!

I've had issues with that site in the past and so I would rather not deal with that site anymore, otherwise I would.

[vortalexfan]

Here are some pictures of the cabinet for this TV, you'll be surprised at how immaculate the cabinet is considering this TV had sat in an old farmhouse that its roof collapsed 20 years ago.

[judge]

Originally Posted by vortalexfan

Here are some pictures of the cabinet for this TV, you'll be surprised at how immaculate the cabinet is considering this TV had sat in an old farmhouse that its roof collapsed 20 years ago.

That is quite amazing.

[Tube TV]

Wow that's nice woodwork. Sometimes you get and get one with a nice cabinet.
This is one of those times.

[vortalexfan]

Thanks! And yes I agree this is definitely a very nice cabinet, and the fact that its all solid walnut and not just veneered plywood might be why this TV cabinet survived in such good shape after all these years.

[vortalexfan]

OK so this TV's Power Supply Cap Can is a 40/40/40 @ 450 VDC I would of tried to keep the original cap in place for appearances sake but somehow the phenolic wafer that the power supply filter was attached to was snaped off at the chassis so the power supply filter cap is just hanging on the chassis by its wires and what not.

I'm thinking of mounting a small terminal strip under the chassis near where the original power supply filter cap was originally as there is a blank hole located conveniently next to where the old filter caps are that I could bolt the terminal strip to.

I'm assuming that the wires that were attached to the mounting tabs on the original can capacitor were using those as grounding terminals or junction points of some sort and aren't critical as to where they are relocated to?