This poor old thing has been stored for many years in very wet conditions and I suspect has not seen power for 40 odd years. Judging by the tide mark of filth on the inside of the implosion screen, it has been face down for some of that time which also explains the major score marks on the face.
The chassis is very heavily rusted in many places and the general condition is poor. Add to that the water damaged cabinet and the missing back cover and you have a set which no one of sound mind would want to restore.
Luckily, I have never claimed to be of sound mind, so I am going to give it a go.
Plus I rather like the design and the 21" tube, so it will be a set I will actually use to watch vintage programs on.
I am not usually a fan of wholesale component replacement before a tv is powered up but in this case, in view of the state of everything, I think it will be essential. Most of the black Hunts caps have the cases falling off and do not have a good reputation anyway. However, I will retain as much as possible and only replace what I consider necessary.
The chassis is built in a square, traditional style around the back of the tube and sits on two lower supports and the whole thing sits on the bench quite nicely.
There is a top panel which carries the power supply and frame timebase, right hand panel which has the line timebase and LOPT, left hand panel which carries the tuner, speaker and volume control and the lower panel which doesn't do anything exciting!
There is also a PCB, thankfully not double sided, which deals with the signal side of things.
So my plan is to strip the chassis into bite sized chunks which I can rebuild over the coming months.
The top panel has suffered the most rust and I will remove the Frame TB components and power supply, sand blast it and have it nickle plated. Same with the LHS and lower panel. The RH timebase panel just has too much on to be able to strip it down and is actually not too bad rust wise.
Sounds a bit extreme I know, but I do similar things with the car restoration stuff, so have access to those services.
So that's the plan anyway- sounds easy doesn't it
Cheers Nick
Pictures of the 'before' state of things: