GE 810 restoration

[Reece]

Indeed very touchy. Spray glue dries too fast in my experience and latches onto the cloth so you can't reposition. Perhaps there is a slow drying stuff. I'm thinking maybe some white Elmer's (not yellow wood glue which dries too fast and is too strong) thinned a bit and painted onto the wooden panel, then the cloth laid on there and stretched and pulled about until in place, and the edges weighted down. Whatever method, the glue has to be slow drying.

[bandersen]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Here's a dry run and the cloth has shrunk a little bit so I will need to do some stretching.
I think I'll try gluing the top edge while stretching it across. Once that's dry, I'll work my way down.


Now back to the chassis. I'm on track to try firing it up tonight.
I gutting the electrolytics and restuffed with the nice skinny Nichicons. Four caps fit into each can with plenty of room to spare
I added a glob of hot glue on top to hold them in place.


I put little sticky tabs on all the wires with a symbol so I know how to reconnect them.
Even so, I'll double check everything.


I'd forgotten the AC plug is shot. I'll bypass it for now, but would like to replace it. Anyone know where I can get one ?

[Eric H]

AES used to sell those plug sockets, I have a few, PM me your address and I'll send you one.

[bandersen]

Thanks! PM sent.

[bandersen]

I finally finished the recapping. I've disabled the HV by removing the 6BG6 and 5V4 tubes. I'll also be using a 5AXP4 test CRT.


I slowly cranked up my variac while monitoring B+. The tubes started glowing and B+ rose nicely and I started hearing faint static out of the speaker. I tuned it into channel 6 and heard some distorted sound. I hooked up some rabbit ears and got some clear booming Phil Collins

Time to hook up the HV!

I heard a horrible high pitched squeal as the set warmed up. Some fiddling with the horizontal sync took care of that. Both horizontal and vertical are very touchy, also the contrast control has a huge effect on both the audio and video. I'll have to check the schematic, but I suspect it's altering the gain.
Finally able to lock in on a stable picture


I suspect the focus is bad because this test CRT is self focusing and the focus coil is messing it up. On to the full sized 10FP4...

[bandersen]

The focus is definitely better with the 10FP4
I still have some work to do with centering the picture, vert. and hor. linearity etc. I'll fire up my recently restored Leader LGC-400 for that.


Here's some Perry Mason I picked up on MeTV using an OTA converter box.
I've been using the sharpnest of the station logo in the lower right as a rough quality indication. This set is one of the best in my collection
The audio was lousy, but that's typical of all my vintage split carrier sets when using the AccessHD DTA1010 box.
It's much better with a Blonder Tongue modulator.

[RitchieMars]

Wow, that is a great picture! Seems like it's really showing some promise, especially considering this is your first power-up after recap. As I recall, this set still had a bit of life in it even before you got started. GE must have designed a pretty dang solid set when they built these.

[bandersen]

Yes, it did kinda work before I started. The main problem was lack of sync. Not surprisingly the sync circuits were a mess from previous repair attempts. It's working much better now

[Reece]

Nice sharp picture!

[kbmuri]

+1 on all the kudos for Banderson's restoration skills. Outstanding work. On both this GE and the Philco on the other thread.

I bought the GE 810 shown (far left) at last spring's ETF convention:


It didn't take much to electronically get it going. It was already mostly restored by the previous owner and then seemingly abandoned.



He did all the paper caps but left the original electrolytics. They were bad when I got it, but maybe they were fine when he restored it. It needed a CRT cleaning (Beltron stage 2) and some loose wires reconnected and the alignment touched up. Other than that, it rocks.

So +1 on the comments about it being a great performer.

I didn't do any cosmetics, the cabinet was basically flawless as-is. FWIW I think the original grille cloth must have been unsalvageable. Anyway, thought you might like to see a slight grille cloth mod that I think looks pretty good.



He painted the CRT opening neutral gray instead of green. I don't hate that mod either.

I also have a fairly pristine, untouched, original GE-810 that's museum grade. I've never plugged it in and don't intend to. The only thing I don't like about it is the grille cloth. Seems like they went kinda cheap for such a nice set. Either that or the cloth just ages badly over 60 years. I bet when they were new, the yarn fuzzies filled in the loose weave and you couldn't see through it so much.

If I were doing Banderson's set I think I would try to find a plain cream-colored replacement, to keep it looking stock, but I would try to find a tighter weave and fuller fabric. Would really improve its look. Just my 2 cents.

[kbmuri]

The pristine one. Notice how you can see the speaker and vent holes. I just don't believe it would have been sold that way, new.

[kbmuri]

One last thought, maybe stretch and glue a beige pillowcase-like linen over the wood first, then stretch and glue the original grillecloth over that. Would eliminate the speaker and vents from view.

[M3-SRT8]

A/C Plug Recepticles:

http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a...Sockets/1.html

Cheap, too...

[M3-SRT8]

I would have Bob back up the origional GE grillecloth with a similar color grillecloth, to dense it up a bit.

[bandersen]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'll take a trip over to JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts and see what they have.

Both of your 810s are in fantastic condition!
I like how well it fits on the RCA stand. Now I know where to put mine when it's done

It took almost a year, but I finally scored some knobs on ebay! They should be here next week.

I found some great adjustment procedures in Beitmans Most-Often-Needed 1949. Centering, horizontal drive, linearity etc.