I restored this 8" electrostatic Motorola 9VT1 back in 1999 and have enjoyed it ever since. It was my first successful vintage TV restoration. However, I did not do anything with the wood cabinet except clean it up. I had never tried refinishing a wood cabinet before. After many years the wear began to show in torn grille cloth from my kids when they were small. I used to let them watch their cartoons on it when they were into Dora The Explorer. This also resulted in a badly damaged speaker cone. The cabinet was always covered in nicks and other damage including a gouge on the right side. The finish was worn and it was now just too ugly to display. I finally decided to restore the cabinet on this set because I wanted to look as good as it works and bring it back into regular service again. I mainly wanted to practice cabinet refinishing on this set before trying it on my larger and more valuable (at least to me) 1952 17" RCA Victor blonde console with doors.

What appears below is the illustrated chronicle of the Motorola's cosmetic restoration. This was more of a practical restoration so I was less concerned with originality as I was functionality and future serviceability and longevity.

The grille cloth came from a remnant of upholstery fabric. I bought some new radio grille cloth which looked nice but the fabric was so delicate that just handling it put catches in the fabric. It was getting damaged before I could even begin to install it hence the cloth you see here.

After stripping the old finish, I used red mahogany stain covered by several coats of spray laquer, lightly rubbing with #0000 steel wool between coats. The finish turned out well. I did not attempt to fill the gouge in the right side. That is a bit beyond me yet besides it does not look so bad now.

When I restored the set in '99 I worked at a factory where I had someone make a back cover out of scrap aluminum. The original fibre back was damaged. This metal back was painted black but I decided a recoat was in order for this project. I used a light tan with black for the tube cap. The color scheme seems to fit better with the set.

The speaker cone was damaged beyond repair so I just decided to go with a new 5-1/4" speaker. The sound is sufficiently loud and very warm from this new speaker, especially inside the wooden cabinet.

The little square thin you see on the bottom front of the cabinet interior is a pice of styrofoam wrapped in masking tape and glued to the bottom of the cabinet. I put it there in '99 to provide additional support for the CRT. The gasket is fine but I felt it needed more than that to prevent possible damage. If I were designing these sets, I would have had the CRT bolted to the chassis or some better kind of mounting arrangement in the cabinet.

After the cabinet turned out so nice I felt the chassis needed some attention now too. All of a sudden I couldn't put cruddy looking chassis into such a nice TV. After cleaning and polishing attempts proven unsatisfactory, I resorted to masking everything off and painting with copper colored paint. The results were quite gratifying. I replaced the original speaker wires with new ones that the required connectors to fit the new speaker. I have the original two small knobs for vertical and horizontal hold but went with these new knobs as the old ones looked a little warped and grungy. I masked off and preserved the ink stamp on the chassis that says Oct 28 1949. Couldn't let that get lost.

Great job ! Me likey ! Purdy !

TV looks fantastic. Great to see it being used for family entertainment, rather than something on a shelf which gets the dust blown off it a few times a year. A speaker more similar to the original will come up on eBay if you keep your eyes open

I put everything together and it still worked although a full setup was needed after applying Deoxit to all the controls and tuner. You can't see it but I installed brass threaded inserts in the cabinet screw holes for the back cover. The original screws were very short. I don't know why TV manufacturers always use tiny, short screws for backs that strip out after a few removal cycles. A tube TV usually requires frequent service. Now I can remove the back as often as I need to without stripping the wood as the back cover screws now go into brass. Think long term serviceability.

I never had the correct knobs for the volume and contrast controls. I ordered some reproductions and the fit and finish are excellent. I highly recommend them. The only trouble is that the reproductions are maroon where as the originals represented by the channel selector are red. Oh well, I can live with that. At least I have the correct size and style of knobs.

So now I have what looks and feels like a brand new TV. I am very pleased with the whole project. There is just one performance issue that I could use a little help with. After the set has been on for about fifteen minutes or so, it develops a slight but continuous vertical jitter that cannot be corrected with the vertical hold control although the hold control works within a normal range. All paper caps and all resistors were replaced in the sweep and high voltage sections when i restored it in 1999. It has been very reliable in the past 13 years needing only a ballast tube and correction of a heater to cathode short in the picture tube which I blasted away with my old B&K CRT tester.

TV looks fantastic. Great to see it being used for family entertainment, rather than something on a shelf which gets the dust blown off it a few times a year. A speaker more similar to the original will come up on eBay if you keep your eyes open

The one I put in is an exact fit and sounds great. I'm going to stick with it.

That is definitly a unique look.

That set happens to be exactly 42 years older than me BTW.

Here's my 9VT1. It's missing all the knobs. When I first got it I looked and looked for the original set but never did find one. If your sure the station selector is the correct one then at least you've got a start at someday getting the others to match. The set looks teriffic!

I have one of these also, it has basically no finish, someone stripped it and left it that way.
It also had the wrong knobs in the same locations, I finally got a correct set from a member here so I guess I need to redo the cabinet, those Reddish ones are really hard to find.

Needs to have the chassis rebuilt too, never done a thing with it.

I have one of these also, it has basically no finish, someone stripped it and left it that way.
It also had the wrong knobs in the same locations, I finally got a correct set from a member here so I guess I need to redo the cabinet, those Reddish ones are really hard to find.

Needs to have the chassis rebuilt too, never done a thing with it.

When you finally get it working, you will discover that it is a really good performer. The 8" screen is easily viewable in a standard size room.