1940s Defiant

[PaulR]

This set belongs to a friend who dug it up from his garage. It immediately appealed to me because it is small and neat and although very dirty the bakelite case was in good condition. It had clearly not been used for several decades.

The owner cleaned up the case before he presented it to me, but the interior had clearly been the home of many invertebrates over the years. The first thing was to get the chassis out and brush it as clean as possible. This showed that he original mains lead dropper had been replaced by a large resistor inside the small case. A quick calculation showed that this must have been dissipating 60watts and it is surprising that he whole thing had never burst into flames.

I couldn’t find a circuit diagram for the actual set, but it turned out to be closely based on a small Champion one for which information was available. There was no question of applying power until quite a lot of work had been done so I proceeded to make up and install a capacitor dropper and replace all the wax capacitors. Due to the heat the insulation on much of the internal wiring was perished so I had to replace much of that. All the valves tested OK and the resistors were mainly within tolerance.

The chassis turned out to be aluminium and cleaned up nicely, but the speaker was very rusty. I wire brushed this and sprayed it with black paint. There was a loose rubber diaphragm under the cone which had come loose so I glued this into place.

When I finally applied power I was quite surprised to hear stations coming through and after realignment it works well. It is not the safest set as the screws for the back go directly into the chassis and these are at mains potential when the set is switched off as the switch is in the neutral lead. I considered swapping this round but I have had hum problems when I have done this in the past. Originally these screws were only insulated by a wax covering which will have come away when the back was first removed! I have explained the safety problems to the owner and he is only using it occasionally and making sure it is unplugged when not in use.

This has been a real resurrection from the dead. Whether it was worth it due to the safety problems is questionable, but it does look nice

[AlanBeckett]

Paul,
Couldn't you change the screws for nylon ones?
Alan

[Darren-UK]

As Paul discovered, this is little more than a rebadged Champion; in this case the 'Meteor' model.

I have a Champion here, different model but with the same dodgy configuration of live-when-switched off chassis, which does have nylon screws at the back. I've also seen other nylon-screw models, so it's safe to assume Paul's radio would've had these originally.

If so, the screws must've been changed quite early in the life of the radio - bearing in mind the decades of disuse.

[PaulR]

Nylon screws are an excelllent idea, but would these have been available in 1948 or whenever it was made?

I meant to add, by the way, that fortunately the volume control worked perfectly despite the storage conditions. It would have been very difficult to remove it as it is totally hemmed in by other components.

[Darren-UK]

Yes. Nylon dates from the mid 1930's and was in fairly common use by and during WWII. The Champion Meteor is a 1949 model and the Comet was a later version of that, so your Defiant will date from 1949 at the very earliest. If based on the Comet it'll be somewhat later than that.

[geofy]

Very good find and restoration, but I would change that switch to the live side and see what happens, sounds lethal like that, and having had a shock from a wrongly wired live chassis when I grabbed hold of a bare volume spindle before putting the knob back on I would not what it to happen to anyone else, well a few come to mind but that's another story.

Geof

[batterymaker1]

That chassis was one crusty critter.

Amazed to see how well it transformed back to the land of the living.

[matthewhouse]

That looks great! You have done very well to clean it up that good. Do you have any pictures of the completed set in the cabinet? The round dial looks interesting. It's always a marvel how the manufacturers managed to cram everything inside such a small space, especially with larger valves like those.

I know what you mean about hum when switching the live, always seems to be a problem with midget sets. I like to fit double pole switches to all live chassis sets just in case, but again the last midget I did hummed badly with double pole too, so was left on the neutral, being careful that all parts were insulated. Black plastic screw washers with snap-on covers, with a dab of glue could also be used if you can't find nylon screws.

Matty

[ajs37]

now that's what I call a restoration! It's particularly satisfying when you restore something that comes to you in this state - well done!
Cheers
Andy

[Steve_P]

Well done Paul. Brilliant set and well done.

I'm with Geofy about the Live Chassis. In that state it may work but it is illegal. Does not matter unless you sell it, which I doubt you are.

Try putting the Switch into live and give it a clean. Maybe it's vibrating slightly and introducing hum?

Put an X2 cap across the switch see if that helps.

Cheers,

Steve P.

[PaulR]

Thanks for the replies all. I think that the nylon screw idea for the back is excellent and I will pursue that. The owner is very sensible and used to old equipment, so I don't think I will disturb it to change the mains switch around.

I did this restoration a while ago and didn't take any photographs of the finished article for some reason. When I get it back for the screw change I will take one and post it.

The dial is circular, one of those aeroplane ones. It has a gold fascia mounted on cardboard. Unfortunately it was somewhat damaged by the heat from the dropper resistor, but that is not too visible when it is in its case.

Paul