Just picked this sad specimen up from my ad in the local paper. $30, and I had to lug it down a long flight of fire escape-type stairs. Thank God they weren't as steep :eek: . Difficult nonetheless, when you're doing it by yourself.

Lady was about 80 years old and lived above a liquor store. Someday this might be a good looking set. She was firm on $60 until I told her I was probably the only person in Western New York to offer her anything for it. I came up $10 from my offering price.

No UHF on this model.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f9/hondacuraworld/emerson1_zps3uluoy3q.jpg (http://s44.photobucket.com/user/hondacuraworld/media/emerson1_zps3uluoy3q.jpg.html)

Cool closeup of the Emerson color logo


http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f9/hondacuraworld/emerson2logo_zpsydsldegj.jpg (http://s44.photobucket.com/user/hondacuraworld/media/emerson2logo_zpsydsldegj.jpg.html)

And now, the guts.....

Set had no back on it and no tubes, pretty dingy in there. Any hints as to what chassis this might be or age on this old girl?

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f9/hondacuraworld/emerson4guts_zps0n8ladbu.jpg (http://s44.photobucket.com/user/hondacuraworld/media/emerson4guts_zps0n8ladbu.jpg.html)

Bummer, missing the Chord and all the Tubs :D

Looks like the safety glass is about ready to fall off though!

Have you checked the CRT yet?
I'd guess somewhere between 61 and 63 on the year.

sure i know. a dusty one without any tubes. i would have lugged it down stairs also. maby it will be a good fixeruper. and may the crt have good emission steve

I would have charged her 20 bucks to carry it away !:eek:

Kam...
It looks like you might have a RCA CTC12 chassis there. We've seen and have had worse here on the "before" postings. I cant wait to see what it looks like after. So far i havent had any responses to my ad but i'm going to keep trying. I know theres got to be more "roundies" here in my neck of the woods. Good luck on your project!
Tony

Wow Tim,

You must really be desperate. Not many Emersons around though. That will be a nice looker because it has a good cabinet and front but it will take a LOT of work, plus you really don't want to run one of these color sets without a back for safety reasons.

I have identified the chassis as #120699, 722 in my RCA color TV Service Manual. That chassis was used in the RCA CTC-15 sets. I don't know what year it is. I'd guess 1963.

Have you put the CRT tester on it yet?

You did really good on the first score last week IMO.

Rob

I've used that same line myself..."I'm probably the only guy who'll give you anything for it."

Now, this set brings to mind something I've been wondering about. How many manufactuers actually made their "own" color sets? Obviously RCA, Zenith, Motorola. In other words, if I were to find one of every color set offered, in say 1964, how many unique chassis would I find?

That's a great question.

Since all the on line "History Of Color TV" websites seem to stop at 1959 or 1960 at the latest, and pick up again with the Sony sets of the 1970's, your guess is as good as mine. The 1960-66 period in Color TV development is the most interesting to me and the least interesting to TV historians I guess.

The CRT is made by Emerson, and tests great! And, thanks to my trusty heat gun, I successfully performed cataract removal surgery on it, and we'll start making her go again after a long sleep.......if my skills are up to it!

Hey Tim,

Way to go on the cataract surgery! Were ya' scared? I gotta try this when I get the nerve.

You will have to put the safety glass back on to use the tube. I supported the CRT face up and using 3 popsickle stick segments inserted a half inch at 120 degree intervals to create an air space to the cover plate ran an bead of clear RTV silicone around the gap. The next day I pulled the wood spacers and filled the holes left with RTV as well. No way dust or silicone grease can creep into the gap like it could with the old rubber gasket used with the 21FBP22 setup and make a mess in the picture area. Make sure your inside glass surfaces are scrupulously cleaned.

Rob

Tim,I gotta ask,you know I do! After The Cataract surgery did you
implant an I.O.L.(Inter-ocular Lens)?

I guess basically you will do that.

Alan

I think just about every mid-1960's color set I have or have seen uses that RCA CTC-15 chassis or a very similar replica: Hoffman, Wards Airline, G.E., Sears, Sylvania. I'm guessing that Motorola, Zenith, and Admiral used their own, different, designs. It appears that by 1966 or 67, more of the other name plates began to use different, newer designs.

Got the faceplate back on the tube today, just as Rob suggested doing, spacing it off with 3 pieces of plastic between the picture tube and the glass, maybe 1/8" thick, injecting the glass with RTV clear silicone around the glass, then after it dried, removing the plastic and putting the RTV in the remaining spaces. A note: use 3 spacers and not 4 when doing this, they move around a lot less as it seems.

So here she is as of tonight.....

Cabinet cleaned inside and chassis cleaned and halfway in.....with the convergence board, etc yet to be installed.

Tim,

I'm really impressed with your surge of ambition in this project. You will find it much easier I think to put the degausing plate back around the CRT front with the chassis out.

Was the cover glass for the CRT clear or frosted? If frosted I've found that if you leave too much airgap the resultant picture may be fuzzy in the fine detail. I wouldn't go as much as 1/8th inch in this case. Mine was frosted and I could see the defocussing effect even with throat sticks (like popsicle sticks) and they are more like just 1/16" thick. If it was frosted and 1/8" spaced leave it now that it is done. It will probably be OK. You've a much more important challenge ahead, getting the chassis to work.

Rob

It is the frosted glass....

What I did was I kept a small piece of the mouldy stuff to give me a distance guide, the stuff was pretty darn thick. Even if it is slightly fuzzy once it's going, I can easily cure that by tearing the set apart and using a razor blade, undo my work and make it closer up. The chassis is just slid in there at the moment.

And you know, I think that the main reason I was able to do it so quickly (relative to me) is that I did this in the garage. Having undisturbed space is vital to any project.

Originally posted by Rob
You've a much more important challenge ahead, getting the chassis to work.

Yeah, and knowing my own skill level in such an event, if it doesn't work by throwing some tubes in it, it'll be a display piece ;)

Judging by the fact that it uses those brown sealed caps on the chassis and the fact that the picture tube is so good (btw, it is a 1963 date code), hell, it just might work!

Tim,

There is every chance that it will too. You will want to soft start it though to re-form the supply electrolytics with the HOT removed. I cannot overemphasize the importance of using a variac for this procedure or expect to have to replace the electrolytics.

Do you have a variac? I think you got one from me before a long time ago no? If not I can fix you up with another.

Rob

I still have it. Can't remember how to wire up the damn thing, though.....but I'm sure I'll figger it out.

Free to good home......haven't done anything with it since this thread. Three sets in total to get rid of to make room for the new AV setup in the basement.

The CTC5 and the CT100s are staying though ;)

Tim, terrible shame you did not finish the job up. I would give it the go if I did not have so many darn Masco amps sitting in the workpile in the basement. I sort of lost ambition after doing one, then one needed a cap after I replaced the output tranny and the cap was bolted to the chassis, I got irritated and gave up. :) Then I started piling my stockpile of test equipment around it, fixed an old tube CB radio, then bought that Pioneer 1000TW that will need a new set of outputs on one side as it turns out. Have not done any TV work since I restored my circa 1971 B&W 16 inch Zenith, probably one of the last "Handcrafted" Zeniths, had almost all the original tubes, many of which surprisingly tested good despite its age and the surprising amount of use it saw. I eventually plan to give it a good once over and replace the weaker tubes with NOS ones from my stash, but many of the tubes need to be tested on my Dynamic 85 which is a pain to use. You are lucky you did not pick that one up at Amvets, I thought it was going to be useful after reading the book there at the store and seeing it tested everything under the sun, even Nuvistors and other oddities including odd stuff like those Pentagrid converter tubes used in the Zenith Transoceanic radios, except for the slight problem that it uses symbols like stars, circles, squares, pink hearts, blue diamonds and purple horseshoes (OK, so I made the last three up ;)). Takes forever to test tubes that way, though it seems simple at a glance it gets really frustrating really quickly. If I could somehow find the room though I would gladly bring the old Emerson back to the living world.

Thanks

PM me if I don't put something up tomorrow, I think I still have the pics at work.

Here is a picture of the emerson in question.
Tim did a real nice job on the glass and he cleaned out the chassis.
I did the chassis repairs and This set works vary well.
btw- I found a back for it too
Ed

I bet that is a rare one. Looks great!

Wow Tim,

You must really be desperate. Not many Emersons around though. That will be a nice looker because it has a good cabinet and front but it will take a LOT of work, plus you really don't want to run one of these color sets without a back for safety reasons.

I have identified the chassis as #120699, 722 in my RCA color TV Service Manual. That chassis was used in the RCA CTC-15 sets. I don't know what year it is. I'd guess 1963.

Have you put the CRT tester on it yet?

You did really good on the first score last week IMO.

Rob

I can't believe this thread is over 3 years old. Glad to finally see a picture of the Emerson as the previous pix were, I assume, lost. Ed, you and Kam did a really nice restoration. My reference has it as a 1964 Emerson. Sams 719 folder 2. CTC-15 clone as Rob points out. Emerson also used this chassis with a few tube changes in their first 25" set.

-Steve D.

Hah! I got the pics :yippy:

If there are any old threads that are missing what you consider to be vital pics, please PM me and I'll see if I can reattach them.

That's a way cool roundie. I've never seen an emerson like that before. Definitely an RCA clone.

Hah! I got the pics :yippy:

If there are any old threads that are missing what you consider to be vital pics, please PM me and I'll see if I can reattach them.

Tim,

Thanks for finding and posting the original pictures that went with this thread. If I'm not mistaken, all of the AK thread pictures posted prior to a server change sometime back, were lost during the change over.

-Steve D.

Many were. I can grab just about all of them from the first year from an old stored archive.

Here are some screen shots of the emerson. As you can see I have more work to do. The b + filters are on the way out and the crt needs a good alignment. The crt alignment went out when I moved it.
Thank you for the info on it. I was not sure what year it was made.
I have a dumont and the chassis looks the same as the emerson.
This is a good looking emerson and the wood around the bezel is awesome.
Ed

Fourteen years later, things have come full circle, and she's back at my house. I've grown in my skill sets by many orders of magnitude since I originally rescued her, and now I can continue with a full recap where Ed left off :)

Man.....this is an **old** thread...:D

Nice looking set.

Holy ancient thread Batman! I just got an email telling me it was updated. I think some of the members weren't born when this began.

Good on you Tim for saving it (again).

Cool set. That is the first Emerson branded roundy I've seen.

Old is right. I was a radio collector that did not really give a damn about anything computerized much less the internet back then.

I'm impressed your original picture uploads from 2003 have survived all these years.

I was in 8th Grade when this thread was made and didn't even know that anything like this existed on the internet, in fact my parents didn't even have internet back then, but we did have Juno Free Email Service, remember that? :yes: So yeah, I wonder if this thread could be considered one of the first threads ever posted on this forum... :scratch2:

Also just to let you know that when this thread was first posted I had already successfully repaired a 1963 Motorola TT22CW AM/FM/FM Stereo Tabletop radio that a friend of mine gave to me who had gotten the radio from its original owner who had it stored away in a closet in his house because the radio was having problems with reception or something like that.
I had also successfully repaired a 1985 vintage Montgomery Wards 13" B & W TV that the same person who gave me the old Motorola Radio had given me, who had gotten the TV from its original owner and when I got it it had an issue with the Vertical and Horizontal Hold being messed up so I readjusted them on the back and sure enough the TV worked again.

I used the B & W TV I fixed for a couple of years until I got my first Color TV which was a 1988 vintage Zenith 13" Color TV with the knob style tuners, and that thing I used up until about a year before the orginal Scheduled DTV Transition before it got postponed.
I used that Zenith with a CATV compatible VCR to watch cable TV on (my parents had Basic Comcast Cable Service for years back when they still had the all analog channels before they went Digital and required you to have a set top box for every TV in the house).
Interestingly enough I did these repairs on my own without the help of the internet... :thmbsp: :yes:

I only wish all of the repairs I have to deal with these days were as simple as my first repairs were. :sigh: Although I wouldn't of found you guys otherwise then... :yes: :thmbsp:

I bet the old bag calls you back & offers you a box of tubes for
a C-note !
Anyhows an RCA clone so the only $$ tube is the H. out.
Looks like a fun project, keep us posted....

73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !

I bet the old bag calls you back & offers you a box of tubes for
a C-note !
Anyhows an RCA clone so the only $$ tube is the H. out.
Looks like a fun project, keep us posted....

73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !

Zeno, this is an "antique" thread, the last time this thread was updated concerning any repairs done to the TV was back in 2006 and during that time Kamakiri didn't even own the TV because he let it go to a fellow member on here to finish the repairs, and the only reason why the thread was bumped up was because he was letting us know that the TV was back in his hands after being out of his hands for 14 years and that the TV is now working.

I bet the old bag calls you back & offers you a box of tubes for
a C-note !
Anyhows an RCA clone so the only $$ tube is the H. out.
Looks like a fun project, keep us posted....

73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !

She's probably dead by now :para:

I had to do some running around yesterday morning, so I went by the place. It's now a music store (it was a liquor store), and has an awning over top of the fire escape to look more like an entrance. They must have modified it because as I remember it was pointing towards the back then. But I remember those narrow stairs, and the whole thing shook with every step I took hauling that sucker out!

I'm impressed your original picture uploads from 2003 have survived all these years. Long live photobucket!

They didn't. I had them saved on my computer and reloaded them :thmbsp:

They didn't. I had them saved on my computer and reloaded them :thmbsp:

Ok gotcha

I bet the old bag calls you back & offers you a box of tubes for
a C-note !
Anyhows an RCA clone so the only $$ tube is the H. out.
Looks like a fun project, keep us posted....

73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !
Those Emerson's were not not clones! They're genuine RCA built, even up to the tuner. That was the last chassis that RCA sold others. After that, they licensed the design of the same chassis for cloning. :scratch2:

When you said fire escape I was imagining something much more rickety than that. Regardless that was quite a feat to have carried that big set down those steps all by yourself. Perfect example of how when mind over matter kicks in it can turn you into a super hero.

It's ricketier than it looks! At least that's how I remember it. But then again, there's a saying that goes something like...."the older I get, the more badass I was :D"

Fourteen years later, things have come full circle, and she's back at my house. I've grown in my skill sets by many orders of magnitude since I originally rescued her, and now I can continue with a full recap where Ed left off :)

Was it that NOS 1970 Dumont 25" color set from Bryan to me to you to Ed that Ed would rather work on to get his "Emerson certificate"? This has to be pretty easy to finish now that you work on justa bout anything:thmbsp:

I went to fix an issue with a CTC-36 last year. Opened it up, took one look, and put the cover back on :yikes:

Oh HELL to the Naw naw naw naw naw! :D That Dumont was Ed's baby.

I'm moving more into color because I can fix 95% of black and white sets in my sleep. Gotta keep the challenge going, y'know? I got a '70 Zenith Color Commander going great with a VDR and half dozen caps, so for that I'll pat myself on the back.....but.....

Got it running, but have a *really* odd problem......

Set has been totally recapped and seems to be working fine and is stable. After about 10 minutes, the picture gets a bad case of side to side "jitters", and then the horizontal becomes wavy and it loses color lock. Shortly thereafter, it starts to develop horizontal shrink and begins to lose focus. Shut it down, start it up, and the exact same thing will happen.

Tried subbing the shunt regulator, no change. I have the HV currently dialed down to about 21 kV. Something in the HV cage let out a little smoke at about the second variac power up, but I can't see anything in there that might've caused it.

Flyback letting out some moisture? I have a packard bell chassis (CTC-12 clone) that did that first run after recap, fly got really hot and spewed some moisture and hot wax. Let it cool overnight, was fine next day running cool. Current was in spec when this happened, so I blame the moisture.

That's totally possible, because Ed sealed the fly in a sarcophagus of RTV :)

Very first powerup I smelled something that smelled like melting silicone, so before the second powerup I turned the HV down (was about 3/4 of the way up, powered it up at about 1/4 and registered about 21 kV.....thinking that was okay for the moment since I'd assumed it was running high).

If it's moisture that RTV has it sealed in there. Do you recommend that I peel it off? No obvious signs that it needs it.....

If that's the case it could have been re-covered due to HV breakdown of the original tire, they sometimes become conductive due to attracting dust and other things which then cause carbon tracking-so carefully cut the old boot away and replace it with silicone. If the new coating has any pinholes you can then get some stray voltage which leaks out, heating up anything it makes contact with. If you also smell ozone, it's a good clue you have leakage. Shango did a video showing fly tire leakage, you can probe around it with an insulated screwdriver looking/listening for HV then plug the holes with more silicone.

I have a spare fly that I peeled the tire off of because it was all nasty, just haven't coated it yet. Maybe I should run it sans tire a little first, or bake it in a low temp oven to drive the moisture out.

Think it might be a good idea to run it out a little once the old RTV is removed, or at least let the air get at it for a few days?

I'd think a few cycles of warming it up would drive out the moisture much better than just letting it sit. In fact letting it sit might not do anything. Back in the 60s Motorola had problems with brand new sets warehoused in New Orleans. Tube sets would heat up and eventually dry out. Transistor sets could draw much more excess current and would boil the moisture and explode the tire.

Edit: it may have been the primary winding that exploded.

I am amused at the prices 14 years ago. Today, $60 would be a total steal for this set! Nice to see it still receiving attention as it deserves.

Upon advice from a couple people, I decided to order up a horizontal centering control for the set first, apparently this issue was common to the 15 chassis. Actually found one NOS. Ed said the fly was sealed back over 10 years ago, so we'll try the control first. If no change, I'll unseal the fly.

A good plan of attack, I'd say!