Murphy D26 (1935) Fixed.
 

After some not so successful attempts at fixing old radios this came as a welcome change.
I’ve had this set some years and restored and cabinet about 10 years ago. Today I decided it was time to look at it and hopefully get it working.
I powered it up to be greeted with a loud hum. I very quickly switched it off; I removed the chassis from the cabinet and had a good look. I’d successfully fixed my A30 last year which looks very similar so I was expecting to see lot of wax capacitors and a large Murphy “condenser box”. I was surprised to see none of this but lots of silver capacitors of varying makes. It looked as if someone had attempted to fix it many years before I obtained the set.
The first thing I replaced was the Hunts duel electrolytic cap (16 uf x 16 uf) as it read remarkably low. I used a couple of 22 uf and to my delight the radio sprang into life. It was still producing a hum but nothing like before so I decided to replace all the existing caps. While I was doing this a few wires just disconnected themselves from their solder joints with very little disruption. So I made good and re-soldered all this previous work to make sure everything was well connected.
I replaced the horrible white mains lead with a nice period fabric covered one and I now have a very nice radio wich doesn't hum.
It’s incredibly sensitive; I can even pick up stations without an aerial plugged in, with one it sounds really good and goes very loud.

Re: Murphy D26 (1935) Fixed.
 

Very pretty, 19/10!

Re: Murphy D26 (1935) Fixed.
 

Very nice Clive.

Andrew

Re: Murphy D26 (1935) Fixed.
 

That's a really nice job you have done on the cabinet. Is it french polished?

Re: Murphy D26 (1935) Fixed.
 

I had always assumed that the Murphy models with the prefix "D" were DC mains only models. When you made no mention of having to convert your D26 to work on AC mains I looked into it.

Murphy made 14 models between 1930 and 1940 with the prefix "D" in the model number and only 3 of them were DC mains only models, the other 11 being universal (AC/DC) sets.

The DC mains only models were D4, D24 and D28.

The AC/DC mains models were D26, D30, D34, D36, D38 D46, D48, D50, D70, D72 and D90.

You live and learn. ;)

Re: Murphy D26 (1935) Fixed.
 

Thanks, I now tend to french polish my cabinets, but this Murphy was done with polyurethane varnish some ten years ago. If lots of coats are built up and cut back between each one very good durable results can be had. But it is time consuming as it takes a good day for each coat to fully dry.

Re: Murphy D26 (1935) Fixed.
 

A very nice set, another one for my list when one comes up.

Regards, Robin.

Re: Murphy D26 (1935) Fixed.
 

Very nice radio, good job!

Cameron

Re: Murphy D26 (1935) Fixed.
 

Well done Clive, that looks very good.