The trip home was actually quite smooth with the exception of one bump, and even that one wasn’t too bad. I have been told I did not exercise adequate caution in the manor that I transported the set, but I didn’t have many options. The set was padded, including the bottom, and I took great care not to hit any irregularities in the road surface. The getter remained silver after I arrived home; however, I have not checked its appearance for a year. Life has a way of insuring I will get things done, but they are usually the things I have to get done for survival, not the things I want to get done as a hobbyist.
So, much for the trivia; here’s what I have determined thus far.
Although the seller told me the screen lit up “with a little black at the bottom” (which I interpreted as either insufficient vertical deflection or fold-over), there was another little problem.
In order to see the screen light-up the set obviously had to plugged-in and turned-on. I have no reason to believe the seller had a Variac lying around so the set was hit with normal line voltage. Possibly as a result of this, the on-off switch was badly charred and had either caught on fire or came close too doing so. The damage burned the AC wiring to the switch back two or three inches underneath the chassis. This is why the volume control shield is shown unattached in one of my prior photographs. You can see the brown soot on it. In addition to a damaged power switch, that easy to find and replace volume control……you know the one; 1M with tone response tap at 180K was irreparably damaged as well. (The easy to find statement is a bit of humor) The brightness control is a 2W wire-wound pot and survived without a problem.
Further, just to over-engineer the chassis (to minimize the requirement for service calls I suppose) someone decided to increase the value of the cathode fuse in the Horizontal Output circuit from 450ma to 20 Amps (that’s a twenty). This is not a joke, at least in the context of this narrative. This insured the fuse would never blow. I wonder why the engineers at RCA didn’t think of this?
Finally, someone had cut off the kinescope socket and replaced it. In and of itself, this isn’t too much of a problem except the technique employed was sloppy; the wires were not tailored to the proper length nor were they dressed appropriately. Then they were soldered together and wrapped with black electrical tape. Duct tape would have been fine, but black electrical tape?
I’m fairly competent addressing electronic problems since I have had my hands on and around these things for more than 40 years. A defensible argument could be made that I have 5 years of experience 8 times, but that’s another story. As a consequence of my primary talent, the first order of business was to document and remove the control cluster. Once I did that, I sent it away to Mark Oppat at Old Radio Parts for repair:
http://www.oldradioparts.net/
I am deeply indebted to Mark for his expert restoration and repair of the control cluster; he does beautiful work. The installation of the serviced component required a week and a half since I wanted the repair to closely resemble the original manufacturing technique and style. It was worth the effort; I’m happy with how it turned out and that isn’t always the case.
The problem that is befuddling me at the present time is refinishing the lower valance. It seemed like a simple process to just lightly sand off the old finish and then re-stain that cabinet part to enhance the appearance of the set. This has proven to be a frustrating experience though. After 30 or more test stains (on scrap pieces of wood) I am no closer to matching the rest of the cabinet than when I started. My decision now is to just get on with the other problems and not be concerned about the stain at the present time.