12" Zenith b&w Portable- Plastic cabinet is Disintegrating
 

I picked up a mid 60's zenith b&w portable at the thrift store today. With "$5- as is" on the price tag I was expecting a dead set. Got it home, plugged it in, and of course it worked like new. It's a Zenith after all! It's a hot chassis set, has a continuous UHF tuner, and only has one transistor, in the UHF tuner. The set has one major problem however. The white plastic cabinet back is literally disintegrating. I can make deep gouges in the plastic with my fingernail, leaving a powdery residue behind. Removing and reinstalling the back to take a look at the filter caps caused the case screws to strip in their holes. I've never seen a plastic cabinet decay in this way before. Is this common problem with Zenith portables? I'll get some pictures and a model number up in the morning.

I've had many of these Zenith portables and I don't recall ever finding one with a disintegrating case. This set may have a million hours on it and the heat from the tubes may have done something to the plastic. The only sets that I remember seeing with falling apart cabinets were Sharp sets of the mid-to-late '90's.

I've seen that sort of behavior on other plastic stuff that was kept in very hot attics for many years... but never on a television set.

Tom

Too bad it's not a 16" set, I'd give you a 64 Zenith with a great cabinet but a busted CRT, well it was great, don't know after a couple years in the Garage rafters.

Maybe it spent its life in a window - I've seen plastic interior pieces on cars that have suffered the same symptoms you describe.

Me too, my truck has door panels like that. I also have one Zenith from about '65 that has the handle doing that. The CRT cracked on that one though.

I've seen this too but usually from something that has been stored in a hot attic for years.

It's really too bad the cabinet is wrecked, because the set displays a really good picture and the chassis even has it's complete set of original Zenith branded tubes. The thrift shop I got it from does a lot of business clearing out estates as well, so I bet this set was stored in someones attic or shed for a long time.

Well I'm an idiot.
It's actually a 12" set, Model number 13N15. It uses a 12BEP4 CRT. I must have been tired last night when i started this thread.

Time for a custom cabinet! Wooden "mini-console" maybe; mask the crt so it looks like a porthole; Remove the phonograph from an old side-by-side radio combo and install it there. If the radio has a lift-up lid over the phono, all the better-make it a mirror-lid set. Or, how about a plexiglass cabinet?

Sony had that problem in the 90s... I had several of them just crumble and fall out of my hands! You could take a piece of the plastic in your hand, and rub it to powder with your thumb. I have an '80s Sony KX-2501, which is starting to do that. I went to push it into a cubby hole on a shelf, and my hand pushed a hole in the back! It stinks like dirty football socks in a hamper on a humid summer day, so that probably means there's some kind of organic reaction going on in the plastic.

Charles

Agreed. White interior Dodge Challenger/Plymouth Barracuda door panels were known for this problem. For some reason, UV protection was not included in the white plastic mix.

Maybe you could pour some of that thick, clear urethane over the plastic. (The kind that is meant to encapsulate knick-knacks in a coffee table, etc.)

I think a custom Plexiglass cabinet would be a nice tribute to this little trouper's longevity.

;-)

The set has found a home on my screened in porch. I have one of those little UHF video senders upstairs that I'm using to retransmit Fox News from a digital cable box to the Zenith outside.

It's nice to have a set to watch when I'm enjoying a cigar in the evening.:thmbsp:

As to the cabinet suggestions, I'd love to build something like a wood or plexi cabinet in the future, but for the time being I may keep the set in it's current "patina." I guess it kinda serves as proof of what tough little sets these Zeniths can be. I may have access to a woodshop in the near future.

000