Yet Another Bush TR82 Restoration Question

[camtechman]

Any tips & or products available that would restore the colour back to the rexine covering on my Bush TR82C.

It was a very filthy blue (years of being used in a garage workshop), unfortunately my efforts in washing the rexine has caused the result in the picture below:

[Steve_P]

Shoe Polish?

Cheers,

Steve P.

[camtechman]

This is going to make me look a worse numpty than I already am but.....can you get Blue shoe polish?

[Geoff 555]

Hi you might try something called 'Vynalcote' ( sorry spelling is probably wrong,I cant remember.) It's used in classic car restoration for interior trim and panels. Can be bought in a wide range of colours.
Cheers.
Geoff.

[camtechman]

Thanks for that Geoff,

I'll look out for it.

Cheers,

Tony

[Brian R Pateman]

Originally Posted by camtechman

This is going to make me look a worse numpty than I already am but.....can you get Blue shoe polish?

Yes, it's what you use on your blue suede shoes!!

Any decent shoe shop should have a wide variety of cleaners and colour restoring polishes - according to my wife who knows about these things.

Regards,

[Robert Darwent]

Hello Tony,

Try shoe cream rather than polish. Its available in a wide range of colours in small jars and is available from your nearest branch of Lilley & Skinner shoe shop. Other suitable brands are Meltonian and Tarrago. I've found Tarrago to have the widest range of shades and colours. They have a website but I buy mine from eBay, several sellers regularly stock it, and it works out cheaper usually especially on P&P. I did the rexine during my Bush EBM60 restoration below with a red Lilley & Skinner shoe cream;

https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...ad.php?t=17503

Regards

[camtechman]

Thanks Brian & Robert....a trip to the shops is in order .....

[mark pirate]

I have had the same problem with the tan version, which looked like it had lived in a chip shop all it's life After cleaning it went dull with white stains.
I treated it with 3 coats of tan shoe polish (just the normal stuff applied with a brush) and now looks good as new so go ahead with the blue shoe polish!

Mark

[howard]

Hello,

I've restored around 40 TR82/VTR103s and the rexine around the middle does change colour when it's wet but should return to its original colour when dry. If it doesn't then I fear it's cleaning has been done a bit too rigorously ! I guess one could try blue shoe polish or some blue Color Magic car polish to revive the original colour on a TR82C.

Tony, I do keep scrap cases if you want to have another go ...

Howard

[camtechman]

Thanks for that info Howard,

I'm off to the shops today to do a reccy on various products.

I won't rush into this one though as I need to learn from this and get it right.

I'm also going to B&Q to have a look at their various Upholstry cleaning products (which I believe you use).

At the moment, looking at the graduated faded blue rexine of my radio, I'm beginning to take to the "Stone Washed Denim" effect.....

Tony

[Station X]

"Heel Bars", the sort of places that repair shoes and cut keys often stock "meltonian" type shoe creams. My jars are labelled "Kiwi Select".

[radiojon73]

How about recovering it ?

[Darren-UK]

We've had threads on recovering; from memory there was one concerning a record-player and another concerning a Roberts R200. The TR82 (etc) is a relatively simple radio to recover, so yes - it's perfectly feasible.

Normally, however, you'd only do this if the original covering was torn or badly scuffed and I don't think this is the case here.

[camtechman]

Hi again,

As a follow up to my original problem I can now report on an accidental & totally unexpected but successful restoration to the faded & patchy blue rexine covering on my Bush TR82C (thumbnail #1)

After doing some research on what colour dyes are available, I've gone for a product by Tarrago, No:16: Midnight Blue.

I've ordered a 35ml Kit and it should arrive in a day or two & in the meantime I dismantled the case assembly, in order to have easy access for ease of application of the dye.

Once the case was apart, I decided to give the faded rexine a degrease before the dye arrives but I'd run out of my usual Methanol/Ethyl mixture and the only other product to hand was Propanol-2 (iso-propyl alcohol).

Applying a liberal amount of the iso-propyl to a clean, white cotton cloth, I wiped it all over the faded rexine and to my utter amazement & almost instantly, the full colour came to the surface and within secionds had dried and after a few moments I buffed it with a soft, yellow polishing cloth.....and was as good as new!!!!

See thumbnail #2.

Seems like I've ordered the Blue Dye for nothing!