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Old 11th Aug 2010, 10:41 am   #1
Count Moriarty
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This set was bought at a car boot sale for £3. It was very grimy and had a very distressed finish, but was complete and undamaged apart from the mains cable, which had been cut off. The radio proclaims on the outside that it's made in England, but the tuning capacitor at least is marked as Dutch manufacture!

Internally there was a thick layer of dust with no signs of disturbance; the spots of paint on the trimmers were unbroken. Always an encouraging starting point.

Getting the knobs off was not easy, requiring rather more force than I was comfortable with, but I managed to achieve this without any breakages (yellow duster wrapped behind them). I polished up the shafts later on to hopefully avoid a recurrence of the problem. The chassis was then removed and examined. There was a nut missing from one of the bolts holding the mains switch/volume control assembly to the chassis. The wire for the tuning pointer had fallen off the drive. The rectifier and output valve had the dreaded brown deposits showing they had both seen some hard work - perhaps there is a certain capacitor passing DC somewhere?

Affixed to the bottom of the cabinet was an inspection sticker bearing a date of 8th August, 1952. By coincidence I'd acquired the set on its 58th birthday!

The tuning pointer, which runs along a metal rod, was seized owing to corrosion of the rod roughening the surface.

The tuning scale assembly and the speaker baffle were removed from the cabinet. The cabinet itself was polished up using Rustins wood reviver, which made a large and immediate improvement to the finish. There's a tiny piece of veneer missing immediately above the volume control, but the finish is otherwise in exceptionally good shape.

The printed side of the scale was dusted off with a dry cloth and the front with a slightly damp one to shift the nicotine and other grime.

The tuning pointer rod was removed and polished, and a drop of oil added to the felt pad on the pointer. The pointer then ran smoothly on reassembly. I managed to re-string the pointer drive (thin metal wire on this set) first time without the need either for service data or expletives. My pride in so doing was, however, to be my downfall later on!

A spare nut was sourced to secure the volume control properly, and a temporary mains lead was fitted using a bit of choc block.

No cold shorts and no visible signs of distress - so got the tin hat and went for the full mains. It was alive. Tuned noise but not stations on MW: nothing at all on other bands. Volume control scratchy, tone control fine.

All paper capacitors were then changed. I had commenced with 'that' capacitor, which flaked apart during removal, so assumed the others were in a similar condition and replaced them regardless. My assumption proved correct and I was left with nothing but fragments of tar and wire to throw away.

The new capacitors restored operation to all bands. I had just reassembled the set and was starting to feel pleased with myself when the tuner drive cord snapped. "Oh no!" quoth I, "the tuning cord's broken, and it's a Philips too." (Well, I'm sure the moderators wouldn't be happy if I repeated what I said verbatim!)

On this set, the variable capacitor is well damped and the cord is threaded to it via two little bowden cables. To cut a long story short it was a bit of a tricky job to replace it. Perseverance won out eventually and I can now consider the job done. The final task was to replace the mains lead with a more permanent and secure arrangement.

I wouldn't claim this set as anything exceptional in sound quality, but it certainly looks very nice after restoration. I'll post some before and after photos later on.

Here are the pictures
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Last edited by Station X; 17th Aug 2010 at 12:14 pm. Reason: Threads merged.
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Old 11th Aug 2010, 7:17 pm   #2
JoshWard
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Default Re: 1952 Philips 411A radio

I really like that, well done. I love finding woodies like this cheaply at carboots!
Wish I could get one of those

Josh.
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Old 11th Aug 2010, 9:56 pm   #3
howard
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Default Re: 1952 Philips 411A radio

That's a nice set for £3 ! 1950s Philips AC mains radios usually work well after their black caps have been replaced and they sound good too.

Howard
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Old 17th Aug 2010, 1:04 am   #4
tedzed1
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Default Re: 1952 Philips 411A radio

Well done, what a nice looking set

And yes, i HATE re-stringing a set once, let alone TWICE.

Regards Paul.
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