Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Darwent
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike. Watterson
How do you know?
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As I said before, by seeing how the set performs - usually a pretty good indicator of anything amiss without testing absolutely everything first.
The old saying "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" has served me well over the years especially when the object of the exercise, IMHO, is to preserve as much of the originality of the set as possible.
Dave asked for "experience and advice" - right or wrong, I've given him mine gained from working on three examples of this particular model.
Regards, |
My advice is based on 40 years engineering and hundreds of sets.
No one is going to peer at the chassis. If you want original, don't make it go.
"by seeing how the set performs"
How? A test lab and full makers spec? No, it's EASIER and safer to test the KNOWN parts that can be faulty and to replace all the parts that INHERENTLY will be faulty. As I said, if you wanted to be lazy and take a risk you could leave all the filament decoupling Hunts. It's not worth it.
It's impossible to have any valve based set both original AND reliably working. You pick one. Which is why old rare valuable sets are NOT restored to work, but cleaned, even "restuffing" the big Bakelite cased caps is vandalism on some models. I "restored" my 1929 McMichael which isn't particularly special (models before 1927 certainly are) by snipping one end of the wire to the two big caps and tucking a small ceramic disc behind. I repaired wiring with vintage wire and repaired the wire-wound pot. I made working replica batteries.
I have a 1928 Marconi that someone dismantled. Probably I'll just reassemble it. I'm not sure.