Radio From Hell
 

Sometimes, you just feel sorry for a radio. Such was the case with a Zenith 5-s-29 tombstone radio that I got at auction in a large pile of radios. This set was just in awful condition. In addition to a rusty broken up chassis, what the previous owner must have wanted on his tombstone was a thick layer of grey housepaint.

The paint was applied without any thought, just brushed right on over the dial glass and the grill cloth! About half of the veneer was missing, so this was possibly a fix to cover that up.

In spite of all that, I happened to have some extra caps, so I did a quick recap, and the set worked! Considering that the tuning cap was crushed (I had to run a file through the separate plates in order for them not to run up against one another and short out) and the clothes pin holding the voice coil lead in, this Zenith wanted to live! But considering how much labor was involved, and the expense of veneering the set, I put it aside.

A few months later, a coworker wanted to know if I had any radios to sell, preferably a wooden tabletop. I said he could have this one for the cost of materials. He agreed, and I got to work. Here is the cabinet after I took the trim off for stripping.

Attachment 165423

I used heavy duty chemical stripper to take the paint off, and found the veneer unsalvageable. So I ran a belt sander across the whole thing to take off the old veneer. Did I mention I pulled this radio out of a mud puddle, having sat in the rain all day at the auction? Well, that means the cab was separating every which way. Over the next week, I clamped down the cabinet and used lots of wood glue and putty to fill it all back up. After all this, and a bit of paint for the insides, this is all that was left:

Attachment 165422

Tune in later, as I have a bit more to do.

Nice save :thmbsp:
Not many would take up this challenge.

Are you going to re-veneer it ?

Pictures aren't working for me. :(

Sam,

Are you still having issues seeing the photos?

To continue, there wasn't much left of the cabinet at this point, but my veneer had arrived. I bought a large sheet of flat cut and cross cut. There were originally some strips of really fancy stuff around the base, but I could only buy it in a large quantity at a high price, so I nixed that. This is a flexible paper-backed veneer stock, and you use contact cement to attach it. You put a good coating on the contacting surfaces, and while the stuff doesn't feel especially sticky to the touch, when they come together, they are together-permanently. This time, I diluted my cement with a special thinner, and that made it all go together much more easily. Already, the cabinet looks a great deal better:

Attachment 165444

Sad to say it, but the veneer really was all that was holding the cabinet together- a lot more work needs to be done.

This has all the makings of a wonderful "Sow's Ear into Silk Purse" story...Good for you !!

Wow, nice job! What brand glue did you use and how did you bend that veneer? Veneer softener?

I typically order my veneer stuff from Constantine's, and the glue/thinner is their house branded stuff. This veneer was fresh, and extremely flexible, so it went right on without any special treatment. While you can get away without using the glue thinner, you risk your raw glue clumping, which translates out to a lump in your finished piece. This is the first piece I have ever completely redone the wood on, and I am pretty happy with the results.

BTW, the wood on the face does have a pretty bad color mismatch, despite the fact that they were adjacent to one another when I cut them from the sheet. Oh well, we'll try to match them up during the staining process.

Yep. That didn't work either. I keep getting a "you're not logged in" screen when I click on the link.

Sam, I'm not sure what the problem is, I have tried viewing these posts on several computers (both pc and mac) and as long as I'm logged in, I can see them. I add these files as an attachment that VK loads for me so I can drop them into my text. This may be out of the norm, as it seems that whenever I view anyone else's pictures here, they are in a discrete box at the bottom of their post. I could try posting in that way, if someone could explain how it is done.

Sam, sounds like a login cookie problem. Try clearing your cache, and your stored cookies for Audio/VideoKarma. That should clear up the "not logged in" issue.

Didn't work.

Well, with the cabinet coming along so well, I put that aside to work on another issue: missing trim.

Looking at other photos of this set on the net, I quickly saw I was missing three pieces of trim, all of the same ribbed type like I still had on the front of the cabinet. I needed two smaller pieces across the top, and a piece to go onto the grille, that had to be a bit thicker and curved at the ends-without a woodshop, what was I to do?

I opted to cast the parts I needed using my originals as a guide. My brother and I used to make castings as kids using nothing but Play-doh and hot glue. We actually always kept a gallon of home made doh handy for just such a purpose. I decided to make a mold from play-doh, and cast in JB Weld epoxy. After casting a few pieces, I found that by altering the 1:1 mixture of the two part epoxy, I could make it slightly flexible, which would be handy in tacking it onto the cabinet, as JB weld would normally shatter under such conditions. Here are two such pieces in mid-cast:
Attachment 165453
For the piece that needed to be curved on the ends, I only needed to curve the Play-doh mold in the direction I wanted. My brother and I used to call this "active casting" and it is a pretty cool way to custom alter a mold. The pieces I needed came out with a few expected bubbles, but with a quick application of wood filler and a neat sanding, the finished pieces were ready to go onto the cabinet. Would they match okay?

LOL - Is there anything JB Weld can't do?

Seriously, nice approach. I looked into casting kits a while back and was scared off by the prices. Mold material, release agent, casting resins and so on. Way too much for making a couple parts like you're doing.

Yup, you might get better results from dental alginate or anything from Smooth-on, but it's tough to turn down the miracle properties of JB weld-it even captured the wood grain nicely! Total cost per mold: about two dollars.

I had a test mold of this stuff sitting on my desk at work, when one of the machinists happened by. He told some other folks about what I was up to, and it broke down into a contest between the engineers (who thought this was doomed to failure) vs. the machinists (who really liked the idea). Well, when the mold was pulled, and the remaining play-doh scrubbed away, everyone was amazed. I can see this being really handy for replicating knobs.

In fact, I forgot to mention that two of the Zenith "Z" stamped knobs were cracked and missing pieces. I built up the empty areas with JB weld, let them cure and filed them down, and they will look perfect when they are lacquered.

Leadlike from Lancaster,

Pictures! Could you please run a series of pictures showing how you made the molds, molding process, unmolding and final product? I could surely use this method and I'll bet others could. Thanks!

Reece
Cleona, PA

Reece,

I won't be able to take any new pictures for a while, as I fell in my front yard, and crushed our digital camera, as it was in my pocket. It won't power up as it is now, and the lcd is clearly broken. I'm hoping to at least get it powered up again....

As for the method of casting, it is simple enough that pictures probably won't be necessary. Just take play-doh right out of the can, flatten it out on a hard surface, and level the top side with a piece of glass or something smooth. You should now have a slab of clay that is of a consistent thickness. Let's pretend you are going to replicate a Zenith "Z" knob-just stick the knob Z face down into the clay (Play-doh contains silicone, so it will help to release your piece from the mold). To get a good mold, put it in as squarely as possible. Pull the knob, and your mold is already ready! This yields a very nice impression, and I'm sure experimenting with other materials you could cast in a wide variety of ways. Anyway, mix up your epoxy in the prescribed 1:1 for a solid knob, or add a little more catalyst than resin to create a rubbery material, this is very hit or miss, but add about 25% more. To fill the mold, pour in a bit at a time, and use a small spatula to spread the epoxy into the nooks and crannies, to help minimize air bubbles. When it is full, set it aside for at least 12 hours. For something as thick as a knob, maybe longer. Once it has sufficiently cured, you can remove it from the mold. The clay mold is a one shot deal, so just yank off the clay in chunks, and scrub the rest off under the sink with a soft brush. With that, VIOLA! You have your casting! For shaping, even 400 grit sandpaper will rapidly take down this stuff, so I use that and a set of needle files. To fill in holes and gaps, I use wood filler putty, and sand it level. For the finished piece, I spray it down with grey primer spraypaint. Hope that helps, if not, ask questions! This is cheap, and encourages experimentation. Good luck.

Thanks! When you say epoxy for the filler, I know you had referred to JB Weld before, is that what you meant, or some other product? Are there other products that might work, too? Would auto body filler be too brittle?

Reece

Very cool!
I think I'll try making a few fine-tuning knobs for VT71s.

Reece. in this case it was JB Weld, as I had a lot of that on hand, but I have successfully used lots of other stuff in the past to make my final casting-plaster, hot glue, and wax, for instance. Keep in mind that these will be very low grade castings, so you will need to take quite a bit of time to touch them up when you are done.

This isn't for everybody, but if you have lots of time, labor to expend, and no money, then this is the system to go for. If anyone gives it a go, please post your results!

Will do. The only thing I don't have on hand is play-doh - time to hit the toy store :D

I hope all of you have been enjoying this restoration log so far. As this was a project where I had a free hand to make the best looking cabinet restoration I possibly could, I only felt it appropriate to share the experience.

Those epoxy castings were just about ready to go onto the cabinet, all they needed was a bit of shaping, to create truly squared edges. I simply used a belt sander turned upside down to act as a high speed shaper to true up those castings, and strip away any excess bits.

While I had the epoxy project going, I continued to work on the newly applied veneer. After waiting two days to ensure the veneer glue was dry and there was no cracking or peeling of the surface, I applied an oil based stain: Minwax Special Walnut. This brought out the grain very well, and after a staining period of fifteen minutes, I wiped off the excess with a shop towel and let the stain dry for two days. With that done, I could apply the trim.

Originally, the trim pieces were applied with brads. I used brads again to mount the wooden and epoxy trim pieces, but first I applied a thin bead of wood glue to the facing surfaces. The only thing I did differently to mount the epoxy castings was to put them in the microwave for 30 seconds, as it softened them up a bit. This in my mind, helped to eliminate the possible dangers of the castings chipping when a brad was driven through them.

With that done, I masked off the cabinet from the trim, and applied Mohawk opaque toner lacquer, Van Dyke Brown. I applied about four coats, buffing in between with 0000 steel wool to create a deep polished finish. Having that done, I removed the tape, and sprayed the entire cabinet down with a sealer coat of shellac. I used the shellac as a bit of a grain filler, vigorously buffing down the shellac between coats, so that the bulk of what was sprayed on was only remaining in the wood grain only. After about four coats, I felt I could start relaxing, as I now had a sealed shiny cabinet, ready for a top coat of clear lacquer next. It was so amazing to have come so far.
Attachment 165481

Looks fantastic - truly inspiring :thmbsp: I've used that special walnut atain before too - good stuff.

I've heard of using shellac as a pre-stain sealer but not filler. I'm trying to use lacquer like you used shellac as a grain filler, but it's taking forever. I think maybe each coat of lacquer is "melting" the previous layer and causing it to raise up again. Does the shellac work well as a filler? It sure looks good.

P.S. Are those robots on your wall ?

You're statement about lacquer is correct-each new sprayed on layer melts into the previous ones. This can go both ways, as the flaws from each layer will add up, but you develop a beautiful, deep finish in the process. In sanding lacquer down to use as a grain filler, I have had little luck. Those little cans from Mohawk are pretty expensive, and I can buy Bullseye shellac from any hardware store for about half the price. The shellac seems to sand down much more nicely. For instance, I had a small run appear on the shellac with this cabinet. I simply buffed harder with the steel wool in this spot, and the run went away. If I did that with lacquer, I would have created a hole in the finish.

I have only used shellac to do what I would describe as a partial piano finish-the grain is filled in enough so that you have a nice highly reflective quality to the wood, but if you look at the finish from the right angle, some of the deeper grain is still apparent in the finish. There are many ways to truly fill grain, all of them difficult. Perhaps I will write about that a bit more later.

To answer your other question, yes, those are little vinyl robots on the wall in the background-also note our Philco Radiobar is also visible in the background as well.

Woah !! Dat's Puuuuurty.....(grin)

Very Nice!!!! Tnx for sharing your methods all of us can use a little inspiration to carry over hump of a seemingly hopeless project. About ten years ago I manage to get a basketcase National SW-3. Always wanted one cause I had heard that they excellent performers. The SW-3 is a three tube regenerative designed in the late '20s with plug in coils from 90kc to 30mc special bandspreadcoils for the ham bands. The first came out in 1931 the production run ran to about the end of WWII. Lots of different versions from ac with 2.5v and 6v tubes, dc 6v tubes, battery which used 2v dry cell or one that you could use 1.5 or 6v tubes. Anyway this one was missing lots of parts one was a thumbwheel knob for the rf gain. Hens teeth. I manged to get silicon mold material from work. Made a mold and molded the knob from bondo. Worked great! Have also used bondo for molding odd shaped power connector for some military gear I've picked up over the years.
Terry

Here's my attempt to make a channel and fine-tuning knob for a Motorola VT71. It worked just a described by leadlike.
There are a few voids to fill in and some slop to trim off. Then, I'll drill a hole for the shaft and try to paint them.

Great work on the Moto knobs! I suppose the next step in creating a true representation of them would be to swirl some pigment in; but that won't work for JB weld. I have tried acrylics and enamels by mixing them in with the two parts of the epoxy, and it will either cause the stuff not to set, or it will force the paint to the surface of the piece, where it simply wipes off. How long did you wait for the knobs to set and dry?

I'm thinking that the channel knob is going to be challenge. Maybe there is a way to fab a small insert so that it won't want to break off the two flats that turn the shaft. I need to make up afew of the VT-71 knobs too.
So far so good!
Terry

The molded knobs are great! I wanna mold something.

Reece

Thanks. I was wondering about adding pigment. Sounds like it's not so easy.
The particular variety I need of those Moto knobs are solid, dark brown. I'm hoping just paint will work OK.

I let the knobs set about 24 hours.

Fabulous read!! That cabinet sure turned out pretty. I have used fiberglass resin to pour into molds to create knobs. I will try the JB Weld next time.

This is it, the final post on the finished product!

I only had to put on the lacquer now, and I used some clear gloss stuff aerosol I got from Home Depot. Four coats later, buffing in between with steel wool, and it was done.

I now only to add all of the pieces to complete it. I had some extra waterslide decals for Zenith, so I put on a Zenith logo and the ABC band label, which was stamped onto the wood in the original. I sprayed a little clear lacquer over them after they dried. The knobs had been lacquered, too, using opaque toner on the edges and face, with a natural finish in the middle. The brass faceplate was buffed up, as the original dark finish was stripped with the grey paint. The grill cloth was some stuff on sale at JoAnn fabrics, and it looks nice here. It is being test-fitted in the picture, hence the wrinkles. To punch a hole in the fabric without it pulling, to allow the speaker mounts through, I used as solder pencil to burn holes into the fabric.

I replaced a few wires on the chassis where the insulation was thin. Before I dropped the chassis in, I looped a wire antenna four times around the inside of the cabinet, and mounted that and the ground wire to a terminal block so the next owner can easily attach an external ground and antenna of their own. Here she is, playing beautifully, the antenna makes a huge difference, I picked up a number of Chicago stations perfectly, and lots of good stuff on shortwave, too.

I handed this set off on Friday to its new owner. He is going to give it to his father for Christmas. He was extremely happy with the finished product. I actually started on this little project back in late September, but I thought I would accelerate things a bit for VK. Thanks for watching!
Attachment 165516

Thanks. I'm think maybe I can scavenge a reinforced shaft from another knob and glue it on :scratch2:

Wow - looks great :thmbsp:
You really work fast :yes:
Thanks for all the great tips - very enjoyable read.

Speaking of the swirl finish I might be able to help out. For the last 20yrs or so I've been repairing furniture primarily leather and vinyl. With may job I have to create colors and patterns to match these damaged pieces. If you like I could mix up so water based acrylics and I have a good sheen adjustable top coat. Something else that is fun to play with is a doohickey called a mouth atomizer. It's like a bad breath powered spray can that you can put any sort of paint in and spray by blowing. I make a lot different effects with it and a few colors
Terry

Leadlike,
Tnx for sharing!!! It's been great following along and watching you progress on something that looked like a trashcan filler into some thing that may be passed down for a few generations.
Hats off to you !
Terry

The sense of self satisfaction when something like that comes so far is frekin awesome! Nice job

Mark

Thanks for sharing your tips on making molds the easy way. The Zenith turned out great, congratulations on a very nice save.

We need a separate forum to archive restoration techniques like this.

John

Damn! thats some great work on that case!
Looks like new lol
Good Job:thmbsp: