Radio From Hell

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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.

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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:

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