Quote:
Originally Posted by kestrelmusic
The easiest thing will be to sand it down and re-polish...
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There's been discussion here and elsewhere before, but one view, which I incline to on the basis of sets I've seen and the two I own, is that when these radios were originally issued there just wasn't any polish applied. Darkened columns at the front are often seen, probably at least sometimes the work of owners, as more clearly are some of the varnishes up to (or down to?) and including polyurethane. One option, then, would be to sand as required avoiding the badge, and then to leave the cabinet to darken again naturally (and, of course, I'm guessing that the sets when new had the look of newly sanded pine).
This is the better preserved of my Wartime Civilians, wearing a replacement 'speaker cloth, which I stole from a scrap 1940 Pye set and washed to substitute for the tattered one as-found. The darkened badge is original, as to the best of my knowledge is everything else, and the cabinet doesn't look to me as though it's ever been in receipt of any sort of coating. Your radio is of course yours, so whether or not the cabinet was originally polished it's your choice whether to treat it now, as I think many owners did with their sets in the '40s to make them look less plain: and whether to give it a new and more legible badge.
Paul