1964 Hacker Herald RP30

[howard]

Hello,

I've got another Hacker A bargain basement one this one, just over £10. When I collected it, it was shown to me working so that was a good start It needed a clean but the back was covered in the remains of sellotape, presumably stuck on there sometime in the past to hold the rear grille on, which had since been glued back on, but onto the leathercloth so it wasn't secure and there was quite a bit of excess glue visible around the edge of it. Inside there was evidence of repairs with 2 new Maplins caps on the amp board and a replacement off/on/vol pot had been fitted at some time. The volume and one of the tone control knobs had cracks in them.

I took the chassis out of the case, first the handle comes off , press down on it and then pull outwards clear of the two screw heads underneath, then remove those two screws, then the two screws at the end of the chassis legs, unclip the two loudspeaker connections and pull out the 5 pin plug that pushes into the amp board at the bottom and out it comes. I removed the knobs (these have grub screws), removed the chrome trims either side of the dial and removed the dial. I also took off the rear door so that I could clean and repair that separately by undoing the four screws along the chrome hinge. I gave all the dismantled case parts a good clean in upholstery cleaner and polished up the chrome trims in autosol chrome polish. I glued the two cracked knobs back together again with superglue. The plastic volume spindle was too long, the knob was some tenth of an inch higher than the tuning knob so I ground the excess off with my hard skin rasp

I then repaired the rear door. I carefully removed the rear grille, discarded the thin black cotton sheet behind it and then set about removing all the sellotape marks and the glue from under and around the rear grille. I used B&Q sticky stuff remover and white spirit to soften it. It took some time picking away at it with my thumb nails but I got it all off I finally cleaned the leathercloth in upholstery cleaner. I cut a new piece of thin black cotton sheet to go behind the rear grille and pasted it into position with Pritt Stick, slightly enlarged the five holes for the grille pins with a modelling knife, applied some araldite into the holes and then placed the rear grille back into position on the rear cover, and let it dry with a weight on it. I then reassembled the case.

I squirted some switch cleaner into the two tone pots and the waveband switch as all were noisy. I tapped the three AF117s to see if any were faulty, two were (both when tapped stopped the radio working) so they were replaced with new AF116s. The chassis was then returned to the case. One of the caps (C2) on the audio board I noticed was cracked so I took the set over to Ron Bryan and he found and fitted a suitable replacement.

It's a nice radio this early Hacker, very well built with very good sound quality and a very welcome addition to my collection

Howard

[Superhet Si]

I was watching this one too Howard LOL
Glad it went to a good home. I was also watching another RP30, but missed the end of the auction. Looks like you've done a great job restoring them. Would you consider sending me some high res images for the Hacker site bellow?

[howard]

Hello Superhet Si,

Yes of course you can have pics of this one and any others in my collection for your website. Just send me a PM with your Email address.

A pic of the chassis below, with its replacement caps either side of the 5 pin plug on the bottom amp board and the two new AF116 transistors top right. A good solder pump is a must when replacing the transistors on these, as the transistor wires pass through little tubes and the solder tends to trickle down them when removing the transistors.

Howard