EKCO AD65 Disaster !

[slidertogrid]

This is a bit of a sad story!
A friend found this Ekco in a farmers barn around 1988, it was complete but fairly derelict , full of mouse chewed wiring and muck.
He took it to Gerry (around 1990 I think) and had it restored to working order and displayed it proudly on a shelf....
One day he came home from work to find one collapsed shelf and one totally wrecked Ekco!
He is not really a radio collector (but has a few interesting collectable Items), so he had a half hearted go at sticking it back together, gave up, piled it in a box and put it in his loft. The set came up in conversation from time to time over the years but that was about it, nothing was ever done with it.
Fast forward 19 years and he decides to move house, I get a phone call along the lines of " The Ekco is yours if you want it.... I give up, a cabinet is never going to turn up, new house, no room, etc" a short drive later it was mine! ( I almost got there before he had put the phone down!)
As you can see it the pictures it is pretty wrecked. One valve is missing, the tuning drive is damaged and the cabinet is smashed to bits, the tuning scale is pretty rough as well!
I have tried all the bits together and most of the bits are there with the exception of a small bit at the bottom.
I intend to get the chassis working and attempt to glue the bits together.
From there I shall keep a look out for a cabinet, I won't hold my breath though!
What does the team think? should I bother? should I just put it in my loft for another 19 years? should I give the repaired cabinet a coat of black paint and create a fake Black and chrome set for my collection? or should I just flog the chassis on E-bay!
Rich.

[peter_scott]

If most of the pieces are there then super glue works well on broken Bakelite and you may be able to fill missing pieces with car filler and paint.

Peter

[mark pirate]

I would definately try to re-build it, i have repaired a dac 90 in almost as many pieces
It also had a few fragments missing, i fixed it back together over a few evenings, one or two bits at a time using car body fiberglass paste on the inside & car body filler on the outside when complete i rubbed down the outside with wet & dry paper & re- filled any low spots until i was happy with it, then sprayed it with primer, again rubbing smooth with fine wet & dry paper
then sprayed it a nice cream colour, after a few days i polished it with t-cut
& even if i do say so myself it looked as good as new
With such a desirable set such as the ad65 , i would have to give it a go!

Mark

[chipp1968]

Definately re build it . If it were mine I would paint it a colour . as brown will never really look bakalite ,as it has a mottled surface even in the most brown bakalite . paint it red or someting !!

[DangerMan]

Hi Rich,
definitely, rebuild it !
This could be your opportunity to own a round green Ekco at a price you can afford !!
TTFN
Pete

[paulsherwin]

I agree that you should try to rebuild it - there's nothing to lose. If you spray it dark brown it will look very like the original bakelite, though the surface won't be mottled and won't be as good as the original. It's an interesting challenge anyway, and much better than a bare chassis.

Paul

[petervk2mlg]

Forget it. It's only ever going to be a wreck.

[andybezza]

Hi,If it were me I would put it together then paint and grain it, Placing whatever mottled pattern you like on it then varnish it with a good strong varnish .

Andy

[Lloyd 1985]

Hi
I'd say give it a go!! superglue works wonders when repairing bakelite, and I use fiberglass to strengthen the cabinet. also if you use superglue, it also fills little chips and you can then sand it flat and polish it (if you don't intend to paint it that is!) for the missing bit you could use the resin from the fiberglass, maybe with a bit of ground up bakelite added to get the colour. and if it doesn't look very good when its finished, I'd go for a nice black paint finish have a look for my thread on repairing a smashed bush VHF80c to see how I got that back into one peice! it wasn't as badly smashed as that though..
good luck with it!

lloyd.

[Radio_Dave]

Yes stick it back together. I stuck one of those, very fragile, A23's back together with superglue and filled the missing bits with car body filler. I was (and still am) amazed at how strongly the superglue bonded everything together, especially considering how unwieldy the A23 cabinet is.

Most of it's value has been lost, so I'd have a bit of fun... why not paint it a pale lime green

David

[plaka78]

It’s worth having a go at just to practice your skills and put down to an education exercise

[Aerodyne]

Well worth the effort needed to bring it back to life. I'd spray black personally, if the joints show too obviously after repair. Nothing to lose but time, really.
-Tony

[HamishBoxer]

Dont give up on it!
David

[Darren-UK]

I've seen smashed Bakelite cabinets in worse condition than that. As most others have said; yes, have a go at sticking it back together with superglue.

If it were me, I think I'd also give the cracks a coating of epoxy (such as Araldite) on the inside of the cabinet. Superglue does a good job on Bakelite providing the cabinet is fairly rigid; from what I recall the cabinets on these roundies are not especially rigid - from the 'waist' towards the top in particular.

Regarding the small, missing chunk; car body filler or Milliput and then paint it as others have suggested. If the superglued cracks aren't too obvious and you can get away without painting the cabinet (are there any chips on the edges where it's broken?) you may even get away with mixing coffee powder into epoxy to provide a filler that won't require painting over. Don't laugh at that, I've done it myself. Given a mix of 50 - 55% coffee and 45 - 50% epoxy a reasonable result is obtained. The mix is very slow curing though, slower than 'straight' epoxy, and that could be a problem.

[slidertogrid]

Thanks for the replies and encoragement! I will give it a go!
Having read the suggestions I will glue the case together using superglue, re-enforce the inside with Araldite and then mix some filler with coffee to fill the cracks and missing bits, hopefully the repairs wont stand out too much but if it looks dreadful I can always go for the green option!
I think Ill have a go at fixing the chassis first though

Rich.

[Brian R Pateman]

This is one case study I look forward to seeing in "Success Stories!"

[chipp1968]

Thats great , One day a cabinet might appear out of the blue! .probably brown
If you do paint it ,make sure any filled areas follow the proper shape ,as it wil show up badly otherwise . Sounds obvious but even slightly out can show up and would really annoy me. If you can do graining , then a proff graining paint job could actually look stiking almost better than the bakalite !

[Ian B]

As an alternative to coffee as a colourant, I would suggest using powder pigments from an artist's supplies shop. In my (limited) experience of using them, they don't seem to affect the setting time of the resin very much. For browns you can use burnt umber, burnt sienna, a mixture of black and orange, or any combination. But experiment with mixing colours with water to get the right formula before adding the powders to the resin!

Ian Blackbourn

[geofy]

There is a product called Tacpac which is a superglue but with a spray can which sets the glue, all this does is exclude the air to allow the glue to set, so gives time to position things. Though like all superglues it can go powdery. A two part epoxy would be my preferred choice. And the pigments a better choice for colouring as coffee might attract bugs being a food substance.

No worse than putting a flatpack together! Good luck with it do one piece slowly at a time. Get the chassis running to have something to listen to while rebuilding the cabinet as an incentive. It already looks partly restored.

G

[Panrock]

Originally Posted by Darren-UK

you may even get away with mixing coffee powder into epoxy to provide a filler that won't require painting over.

Another tip regarding using coffee - when it comes to replacing speaker fabric of the fine mesh gold type - soak new fabric of the rayon/polyester type in strong black coffee for ½hr or so. Remove, dry, and it then looks totally original.

Steve