First TV- Ferguson 988T

[Heatercathodeshort]

Hello Oliver,
Thought you might like to print these scans of the instruction book, CRT and receiver guarantee cards.
You will have to add some postage as the decimal equivalent of one and a half of old pennies is only 1/2 a new penny, probably insufficient these days.
But oh...The buildings, factory and even the tube makers have all passed away. I must have overslept. Regards, John.

[Oliver35]

Aha! I see. I must be getting confused as well, I seem to have managed to sign myself twice! That 998T is an attractive set..

Oliver

[Oliver35]

Originally Posted by Heatercathodeshort

Thought you might like to print these scans of the instruction book, CRT and receiver guarantee cards.

Thankyou, I'll print them off- I can see the CRT guarantee could be useful in case of problems.. I wasn't aware they hailed from Croydon- my forbears came from there years ago- a great- (great?) uncle was apparently influential in getting the electric street lighting installed in Croydon. The family had a small residential road named after them in Purley..

Oliver

[Heatercathodeshort]

Here are the rest of the scans.

[Oliver35]

Cheers John. I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere about sticking your tongue into Part C, but I'm not sure I want to find out what it is!

Oliver

[1100 man]

Hi Oliver,
Have you made any more progress with the Ferguson logo and cabinet? I am very interested to see what the end result will look like. Cabinet refinishing is not really my forte, so I'm always fascinated by neat ideas that people come up with to get round the problems! I think the logo idea was quite cunning, I like the 'wild west' type font too I hope you get a result you are happy with!
Keep us posted with progress
Cheers
Nick

[Oliver35]

Hi Nick,

Progress has stopped temporarily, due to a glitch in the domestic arrangements, but normal service will be resumed shortly. Apart from anything else, the cabinet is glowering at me from the corner of the sitting room, whilst the chassis, with its filmy vulture eye, lurks in its cardboard box and torments me with the sound of a 10k line whistle.
It's had the first coat of clear, and I've tested one of the transfers under a test coat of lacquer. It distorted a bit, but that may be due to my using a wipe of acetone to bond it to the surface, so more experimentation is needed. I've painstakingly traced off five of the things now, they're not perfect, but I've got one that's good enough, should I sort out the application method.
I'm glad you approve of my modus operandi, I'm really only feeling my way, lthough I've done small amounts of similar work on other bits nd pieces. Your cabinet, I assume, is a one-piece lamination- hopefully not distorted after its museum-quality atmospherically controlled storage? I'm definitely looking forward to the outcome of your set..

Oliver

[1100 man]

You will find it hard to believe, Oliver, that despite the impeccable storage that my TV has had, the cabinet has suffered quite badly Not only has the lacquer cracked badly on the top but the top layer of ply has lifted quite badly. At least there are no logos to consider but it will still be a major task. Probably the worst thing is there is no back. I've been trying to come up with ways of re-creating one- the original was made of formed fibre like stuff. All ideas gratefully received!
Hope you can get back to your cabinet soon,
Cheers Nick

[Oliver35]

The lacquer's not a problem, if you're set up for cars then spraying cellulose ( if that's what you choose to use) should be second nature. Delamination of the ply is awkward, I suppose you'll just have to try and get as much glue in there as possible and apply pressure- I don't suppose there's a flat face anywhere on the cabinet, which should make it fun!
I've never had to make a back, I'd probably opt for hardboard in the first instance, although I have stiffened that thick grey cardboard that you can get in art shops with Wet Rot Wood Hardener, which stinks, but soaks in very well and gives some extra rigidity.. Is it an easy shape to replicate?

Oliver

[Oliver35]

There's not been much progress on this set over the last few weeks, due to life generally getting in the way, but I'm beginning to get things done again, and completion may not now be all that far away. What little I have been doing has tended to be either spraying or flatting back, so not very exciting, but yesterday I applied my home-made transfer under a clear coat- it's not as crisp as I'd like, and there is a small clear 'edge' to the transfer, but it's pretty good. Good enough for me, I think..

More spraying over the next couple of evenings- I'm hoping to be doing the final polish over the weekend, and then putting it all back together in its new bling-bling glory..

Oliver

[unitaudio]

Not the easiest thing to replicate, looks pretty damn good to me!

Regards,
Paul

[Oliver35]

Thanks! It's not the easiest, no- the original was actually slightly smaller, and would have been nigh on impossible to execute neatly with a brush. Metallic paint is a bit gloopy, so getting crisp letters was a bit of a task. From any reasonable distance, it looks very convincing, and I think it's a better solution than printing something out. Old fashioned Letraset would have been best (although care is needed with Letraset and cellulose paint) but I couldn't find a font that was even close.

Oliver

[Oliver35]

Finally reassembled the set today, having rubbed down and polished the cabinet, recovered the speaker and dummy panels, and reinstalled the mask and chassis, and I'm pretty pleased with how it looks. I'll try and take an 'after' photo tomorrow in the daylight. Unfortunately, the chassis, which was working fine when put away, is now making a variety of dreadful noises, coupled with a pronounced lack of width, the two of which seem to be connected,as there's interaction between the line timebase and sound. I haven't th heart to start fiddling around with it tonight, so this too will have to wait for another day. Very irritating..

Oliver

[Oliver35]

I should pop back to this thread now that I've sorted myself out and uploaded some pictures, to show how it's all turned out.. The set now looks great, although I have to confess I still find the styling slightly lumpen, but I'm quite pleased with the old thing. Overall, it's worked out quite well, although I now have an irritating width problem that I've not yet had the enthusiasm to tackle. I replaced the disintegrating line hold pot when I did the work on the chassis, and I have noticed that if I short the wiper to the end of the track, the width increases significantly. The replacement reads rather over its rated value on the meter, so maybe a further replacement is necessary.
I've yet to feed any signals into it- I don't have an Aurora, so for the time being may feed 405 line video into the o/p valve grid from a PC, as detailed elsewhere on this forum. It's a wee bit of a cheat, but reversible, and a much more affordable option for me at the moment. Anyhow, finished pictures below..

Oliver

[line sync]

Well done oliver you have made a lovely job of that ferguson.

Robin

[FERNSEH]

It looks much nicer than the original dark finish. Real class job done on what is a good honest TV set.

DFWB.

[1100 man]

Originally Posted by Oliver35

out.. The set now looks great, although I have to confess I still find the styling slightly lumpen, but I'm quite pleased with the old thing.

Hi Oliver,
Don't forget it was the 1950's, a time when architects, who should have known better, were allowed to design some truly dreadful buildings (only my opinion!) TV and radio styling followed suit, and personally, I don't find sets from this period particularly attractive either. It was still a time of great austerity, in the aftermath if the war and people were trying to create something entirely new which didn't look like the preceding Victorian stuff. It was an interesting decade. I think styling became much more innovative in the 1960's when we started to get away from the 'square box, two knobs on the front' type TV's.
I'm really impressed with the end result on your cabinet though, it looks fantastic- well worth all the hard work. Don't fancy doing a Pilot cabinet I suppose
With regards to the width, I wonder if the line speed is way too fast? It sort of looks like that from the picture and if you haven't been able to feed any signals in, you could be way off and not know it. that would also tie in with line hold pot issues.
Well done on a very credible restoration,
Cheers Nick

[Oliver35]

Thanks for the complimentary feedback! Generally I'm a bit of a pedant for appearances- I've quietly re-stuffed my way through this set- but I couldn't bring myself to re-finish something in such an unforgivingly brown shade. I'm glad it meets with approval!

Originally Posted by 1100 man

Don't forget it was the 1950's, a time when architects, who should have known better, were allowed to design some truly dreadful buildings (only my opinion!) TV and radio styling followed suit, and personally, I don't find sets from this period particularly attractive either.

Thanks Nick, I actually did a degree in Architecture, for what it's worth, so I know well what they got up to in the '50s. If you watch newsreels of the time, you can see what they hoped to achieve- as you say, a bright post-war modernity free from secondhand Victoriana. Sadly I think they were too influenced by continental schools, and failed to take into account what the British public wanted or how they lived, hence the ultimate failure of the dream. Ah, well. For me, I'd much prefer a console set from the '30s or '40s, but I don't really have the space or the finances..

I'm almost certainly way off without knowing it, I need to find a cheapo PC and get to work. Motivation is a fluctuating quantity for me, so I'm hoping a resurgence will occur soon, so I can steam ahead. I had assumed that width = amplitude = peak voltage, and would be constant (ish) across a wide working range of t/b frequency- have I got this wrong?

I shall look forward to further progress on the Pilot, and it's cabinet. I wouldn't let me anywhere near it, though- I zoom through my own projects, but have an inconsistent working rate for other people's, which is why I no longer do them. I think it's an excess of enthusiasm for the next 'good idea!'

Oliver

[Oliver35]

Width! The problem was indeed down to the line hold pot, coupled with the idiot who put the wrong value in. I should learn to read, or use a magnifying glass, or even just use a meter to verify the half-obliterated markings on old components. Rummaging around a tad more brought up another pot which was tested on the meter this time, before being fitted. Now I can fill the mask, with some to spare. Next step, i suppose, is to feed vision and sound into it. Maybe the end is nearly in sight..

Oliver