[David G4EBT]

As I mentioned in my first post, while turning the replica wooden knobs for Stef's Bestone radio, It occurred to me that replica knobs to mimic Bakelite could be turned for certain radios, so I later made two replica black knobs for an Ekco A22 - the larger being the tuning knob, the other - with a 'tab' on it - being the volume control on/off knob, (identical to the wave-change switch knob).

As these were to be sprayed with black ‘ebonising’ spray – a speciality paint for woodturning - I cut the blanks cross-grained on my band-saw from beech, which is close-grained hardwood, so sands very smoothly. My aim was to make them look almost indiscernible from black Bakelite. I used my own brown A22 knobs as a pattern. The technique was similar to turning the Bestone knob, without the complication of having to get a good match to the original grain and colour, and didn’t involve any milling of grooves. The smaller knob needed a ‘tab’ to be made and to be neatly glued into a slot cut into the skirt of the knob.

As before, I gave the knobs a coat of shellac sanding sealer to seal the grain, then a light sanding to 600 grit. I gave them a coat of hi-build auto primer and a final sanding before a couple of coats of black ebonising spray. I was pleased with the end result and think they’re a good match for the originals.

Pic 1&2 are my sketches of the large & small A22 knobs.
Pic 3 is a blank cut on the band-saw for the large knob.
Pic 4 shows the blank in the chuck with a packing piece behind, trued up ready for drilling for the brass insert.
Pic 5 shows the chuck being rotated by hand, with a 12mm end mill in the tailstock to mill the blank to the correct depth for the brass insert.

Some more pics in the next post.