Ever Ready Sky Master in blue

[howard]

Hello,

Ive been busy again ! I have been searching for an Ever Ready Sky Master for months. Not many turn up on eBay and those which do tend have bent escutcheons, broken knobs and scruffy cases. But last week a really good one in blue turned up and I acquired it for £13. When it arrived I was delighted cos the case, knobs and strap were all perfect, just grubby and the escutcheon pretty good too, with just one or two minor scratches on it The radio was complete too, even the rear badge was still in place. I switched it on and dear oh dear, it sounded rough The wavechange switches were not working well and the volume pot was very noisy, it even made a scraping noise when turned so it did sound awful

I dismanted the radio so that I could clean it properly and fix the chassis. This is one very fiddly radio to work on. The knobs are tricky to remove, especially the twin tuning knobs. I carefully prised them off with two fork handles. The top of the lower tuning knob came apart where it had been stuck to the bottom half originally, but that wasnt a problem, I stuck it straight back together with a little superglue. The chassis is held in place by two screws under the knobs and two at the base of the PCB but to remove it completely requires unsoldering the wires to the aerial and earphone socket, a tricky job cos those wires are very short so theres little room to move the chassis to gain access to the sockets. I got the chassis and loudspeaker out and gave the case, handle and knobs a good clean with upholstery cleaner and a toothbrush and brushed out all the dust and cobwebs from inside the case. I also cleaned off all the dust on the chassis, quite a lot had accumulated under the wavechange buttons.

I then cleaned the volume pot and wavechange switches with a little switch cleaner, and also put a drop of oil on the variable capacitor top bearing. I also had to stick back the rear grille and backing card cos it had come loose, its only held in place with staples and those had worked their way loose. I glued one edge down with a thin line of EvoStick Timebond and that held it in place. I reassembled the radio, again it was very fiddly reconnecting the wires to the sockets, switched it on and it was working fine

I like this radio, its cute and its well built and sounds reasonable as well It took me around 12 hours to restore this one, quite a short job but its come up almost mint A very welcome addition to my collection, at long last

Howard

[Courtney Louise]

Very Nice Howard