GE 802 restoration
 

I picked up this beast last Thursday.

It's a 1947 GE 802 like the one leadlike is working on. When I contacted the seller, it quickly became clear he knew nothing about vintage sets. At one point he asked if all the hold should have fuses in them ? It turns out he meant if all the sockets should have tubes in them :) I told him yes and he sounded disappointed as it's missing about half of them.

He was just heading out of town for a while so I had to wait. 10 days later I got a call and arranged a meeting. It was about 90 minutes each way, but we had a record high in the low 80s that day so I didn't mind playing hooky from work for a while :D I brought along some test gear and that really worked to my advantage. HE originally saw a set sell for big bucks on eBay and figured his must be worth 1,000s. A local antique dealer deflated that told he it was worth maybe $250 but wasn't interested in it. He tried his luck on eBay next, but no takers. On to craigslist where he relisted several times. The description was poor so my usual searches didn't find and I only found it through a friend who stumbled across it.

By the time I finally got out there he seemed really motivated to get rid out it. I pointed out all the missed tubes, missing knobs and weak CRT, the price came way down and I took it.

Here it is arriving at my place.
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I removed the CRT and chassis. Good thing too - that CRT strap was very loose. I live up on the 2nd floor and brought along a friend to help carry it. I took the chassis and fogot to tell him to wait for me. Being a helpful sort, he decided to carry up the CRT. I turned around to find him swinging it around by the neck with one hand and freaked out a little. Luckily, no damage was done. With the chassis out, the cabinet wasn't too bad and we got it up the stairs.

Here's the chassis. It looks to be all original except for maybe the flyback. No components appear to have failed.
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Here's the rest of the set.

The phonograph looks OK except for some lost flocking.
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The dial is in excellent condition.
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Speaker is good.
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CRT not so much. It barely registered at first. Cooking at an elevated voltage didn't help.

So I tried the "rejuvinate" feature on my Sencore CR70. It looked fantastic at first., but slowly faded after a couple hours to barely read good. The life test stinks too. Next, I tried the "automatic restore" function, but that didn't help much either.
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I imagine it's good enough to use while restoring the set, but I may get it rebuilt.
There's an odd bump where the neck joins the bell. Could that be the way is was made or an indication of a previous rebuild ?
Can a CRT be rebuilt multiple times :scratch2:
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This 10FP4 seems crude compared to others I have so I think it is a very early one. There are a bunch of bubbles in the face.
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It has channel 1 :)
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Here it is back together.
I'm missing a few of the wooden knobs. I imagine they'll be a pain to find. Maybe it'll be easier to make some new ones ? http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2791/...b6250491_b.jpg

Wow what a beast!!

Here are the tubes I did get. About half are missing and some of these tested weak. I need to check my stash for replacements.
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Looks like something funny is going on with the flyback ?
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Here's the 6AL5 socket. My schematic calls for an octal 6H6 here. It appears to be a direct substitute - the resistors are the same value as on the schematic.
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Finally, here's the knobs. I think I need two more of the single knobs and the focus knob is something different ?
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Be careful in handling that chassis-GE used some sort of weird gun tool to pound the ground leads into the chassis rather than soldering them. The chassis tends to flex when moved, and these can pop loose. I had to tack down a few of those when I first got mine, but now that the power transformer has been removed, the chassis is better balanced and I haven't had any problems since.

My chassis has masking tape across where the crt face rests, too, so that must be a stock feature. Your vertical output transformer (the giant hunk of iron behind the focus control) also appears to be of a slightly different construction. It will be interesting to see what you find as you begin your restoration.

Thanks for the tip. I was wondering about that masking tape too. I'd have thought they'd use a rubber strip of some sort.

Can you take a picture of your focus knob and flyback sometime for comparison ?

Its neat that those early GEs use mostly octal tubes and minimal miniatures, dont have one in my collection but someday hope to have one! Great Set!:thmbsp:

Very nice set. (I need one of those too! :))

That bump does look like it could be a weld, but I've never seen a CRT spliced that far up the neck. Seems like you'd be asking for trouble heating the glass that near the bell. A CRT could be regunned any number of times as long as the screen was still good. But my memory may be faulty since it was a long time ago that I spent any time at a rebuilder's; it's been quite a few years since the last shop around here closed it's doors.

--Dave

Yet another one has surfaced! http://newjersey.craigslist.org/atq/1694238099.html

It looks much darker than mine. Maybe it's a mahogany version while I have the walnut ?

Does anyone have a good picture of that focus knob ?

(no affiliation)

That one has been up for a while. The seller keeps going between 375 and 350 dollars. I guess these aren't as rare as we would like to believe. I might venture to say that it is the most common combo unit with channel 1.

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here are some quick photos of that focus knob. I'll try to take some photos of the flyback before it gets installed back in its cabinet. I've been playing this set for 2+ hours every night with no problems. I think I will play around with the vertical size circuit if I get time (raster is a hair narrower than it should be). I have yet to adjust vert or horiz holds since I moved this set out for the "family room test".

If I may make another suggestion: Put a fuse somewhere in this set. That's really a boo boo that GE made in this design.

I wanted to add:

The set's owner is considering adding the phono table again by making his own. Could you sit down sometime and take some photos of the phono drawer and turntable? Thanks.

Thanks !
Interesting - it's a wooden knob but slightly different than the others. I'll be sure to add a fuse.

Sure, I'll take some photos of the phonograph. I don't have a micrometer, but I'll use a tape measure :D

The vernier caliper is a Harbor Freight find. In fact, I think it was the first thing I ever bought from them. I've used it countless times over the years-I just used it this past week to measure wire sized bits to drill out my own carb jets on my bike, size up some parts off of a 16mm projector, and now your photos.

I pulled out the phonograph and took a bunch of pictures here: http://www.bobandersen.com/images/ge802phono/

Please let me know if you need more measurements or different angles.