Ekco AD38, basket case revival!

[Lloyd 1985]

Thought it was about time I posted something on here! So whilst waiting for inspiration on the restoration of an Ekco A22 I thought I’d have a quick look at this old AD38 that I got from the NVCF a few years back. Looking at it I did wonder whatever possessed me to buy the thing, for starters there is no back, the knobs are wrong, the dial is flaking, and the speaker is missing, and that’s just what was clearly visible! It does however have a full set of valves, and all the RF coils and their screening cans are in place.

Another problem is the dropper has started falling apart, the brass strips that wrap around and make up the terminals have gone brittle and broken, luckily the resistance wire itself is still ok! I’ve wrapped the wire back into place and stuck some tape on it for now just to secure it, now I need to find some suitable material to make new terminal strips from.

With the chassis out it’s clear someone’s been here before, there are parts of the power circuit missing, most obvious is the smoothing block, which was a cardboard box type (C8 and C16), the air cores chokes L11 and L12 have also gone awol, and the scale lamp and it’s carrier have also gone.

So why bother trying to restore this?!? Because I like a challenge! And after searching the net for info I could only find mention of 2 of these on here! So it’s a bit rarer than the A22!

So before I do anything I wanted to see if I could get some results from it, even in it’s well knackered state. I traced out the power circuit and got continuity through the valve heaters and the dropper, and connected it up to a home made inverter, which isn’t very powerful! The valves lit up but that was about it, there was HT, about 120V of it, but nothing from the test speaker. A few voltage checks around the output valve found the cathode was sitting at near HT, R12 was open circuit, so a 100 ohm resistor was quickly tacked in and then there was noises from the speaker! More checks revealed the grid coupling cap was leaking badly too, so that was snipped and another tacked in, after a bit of fiddling I was able to tune in Talk sport and Absolute radio! It’s not very loud, but there are a lot of leaky old caps in there still.

So it looks like a viable project! Now I need to ask someone a favour, has anyone else got one of these sets? And if so do they have any clear photos of the speaker baffle board? I’m sure mine is totally wrong, as it doesn’t hold the speaker cloth in properly! Also could someone provide some nice clear shots of the scale lamp carrier? I’d like to make a new one for this set!

Regards
Lloyd

[bluepilot]

We had one of these when I was a boy. Sadly I wrecked it completely. I sawed the cabinet in half and the rest ended up in my sandpit. I always said I would try to get another one. When one turned up I bought it but due to bad packing it arrived as a kit of parts It's out in the barn somewhere. I'll have a look in the morning and see if I can take some photos of the bits you're interested in.

[bluepilot]

OK, well SWMBO was watching some rubbish on the TV so I went and took some photos. Didn't realise until afterwards that the flash wasn't working properly. I'll do them again if you need me to. Size about 20.5 x 29 cm

[bluepilot]

And here's the lamp

[Lloyd 1985]

Hi Stuart,

Sorry to hear about yours! Those photos are fantastic, many thanks! Hopefully I can recreate the parts!

Regards
Lloyd

[Tractionist]

Hi Lloyd,

The AD38 is virtually identical to my [even rarer] Radio Rentals RR484 albeit that the case is somewhat different. The tuning scales on the RR484 are intended to be easily removable - so if you want a scan of mine and photos etc. of the back, just let me know.

Cheers,

Dave

[Tractionist]

P.S. Excuse the dust [patina?] - I restored this particular set thirty-odd years ago! It's definitely rare .... The Radio Museum have no pictures - and describe it as a superhet!

(If you need pics of the smoother block etc. I can probably heave some out. All the cap [cases] are original too .... cos' I re-stuffed 'em!)

[Station X]

Very good Lloyd. I had to rewind one of those droppers a few years back, It had gone into "Slinky" mode. It's important to use High Melting Point Solder when terminating the wires on the brass rings.

Suitable brass is available from model engineering suppliers, but you'll have to cut it into strips. What thickness is it? I may have some suitable scrap pieces you could have.

[Lloyd 1985]

Hi Dave,

That is a nice radio, and certainly not one I’ve seen before, the chassis is identical, not sure why Radiomuseum calls it a superhet! Cheers for the photo’s!

Hi Graham,

Not sure what thickness it is, I’ll get the verniers on it, cheers for the offer of some bits of brass, I think I’ve got some tucked away!

Regards
Lloyd

[Lloyd 1985]

Had a few hours playtime yesterday so decided to dig out the cabinet and see if I could use Stuart’s photo’s of the speaker baffle to make up a cardboard template. I did some rough guesstimates by zooming in on the photo on the computer screen until it matched the provided measurements, I was then able to measure the angled corners and the size of the speaker and it’s cutout. The template fitted first time! For the mounting screw holes I used the cabinet itself so I get them in the right place. The old bit of cardboard I used has now been recycled twice! It was a box, then used for placing items on for spray painting, now it’s a speaker baffle template. No prizes for guessing what parts of what chassis were resprayed on it last!

I also had a quick go at making a cardboard scale pointer, that needs a bit more work before I’m happy with it!

Regards
Lloyd

[bluepilot]

Originally Posted by Lloyd 1985

Had a few hours playtime yesterday so decided to dig out the cabinet and see if I could use Stuart’s photo’s of the speaker baffle to make up a cardboard template.

It looks like it's coming on well. It's not immediately apparent from the photo but there are wooden strips around the speaker hole where the foam rubber has been stuck on. The thickness is about 7mm all around. The top and bottom strips are about 7mm wide, the side strips are about 18mm wide. Inside dimensions of the rectangle about 235 x 143 mm. The board itself is about 6mm plywood (quarter inch?).

[Tractionist]

Well ..... it's starting to look like - a radio! Seriously .... it's coming on nicely and will be well worth the effort - these are visually 'imposing and commanding' sets.

Keep us up-to-speed with your travails Lloyd.

Cheers,

Dave.

[Lloyd 1985]

Many thanks again to you both, those measurements are exactly what I need! And I hadn’t noticed the extra strips under the foam/ felt, I was wondering if I had any super thick felt lying about! I did buy some thick felt for an aircraft compass box that I cleaned up a while back.

I’ve found a piece of rather wonky 1/4” ply, it was hiding on the top shelf on top of some TV’s, so it’ll do nicely for this radio. I’ve started marking it out ready for cutting, I’ll admit now, cutting circles isn’t one of my best skills... good job it’ll be hidden behind the speaker and the speaker cloth!

Oh, the delay in working on this has been due to work putting me on late shift for the last 3 weeks, and then a nice old 35mm camera arrived and ended up disassembled and took over a week to get it back together! Oh, and someone at work gave me a Bush DAC70, so that has been getting attention too! Far too much to do, and so little time to do it..

Regards
Lloyd

[Tractionist]

The devil makes work for idle hands Lloyd! Onwards! Onwards! (Or "Semper Sersum" .. as the Romans like to say ....)

[beery]

Hi Lloyd,
I love the look of the thing, I actually prefer it to a round Ekco.
It does at least have a nice cabinet and a clean chassis.
Well worth the effort, I think you will find in the end, even if it does seem like a never ending uphill climb at this point.

I will be following with interest.

Cheers
Andy

[Lloyd 1985]

Cheers Andy it is a nice looking set, I’ve given it a very quick polish with no.5 after the last lot of photos were taken, and it’s come up quite nice, the chassis is not as nice as it looks in the photo’s, it’s been daubed in some sort of varnish that was badly brushed on, the tuning gang has been painted blue, and there is some rust underneath. I might see how little I can get away with removing before trying to strip the top and give it a re-spray, and just give the underside a good clean.

I nearly started chopping the plywood with a crappy hand saw, but thought better of it! I’ll wait until I have a bit more time and get the electric jig saw out instead, then see if the old router I found at my Nan’s house is any good for the speaker hole. It’s times like this I wish I had access to a nice band saw! I used to have access to a nice workshop full of nice machinery back at my old job, they even let me borrow stuff for use at home too!

Talking of round Ekco’s, there is still an A22 awaiting a new dial and knobs, must get some bits ordered and get it done..

Regards
Lloyd