Ekco U29 Questions

[Lloyd 1985]

Hi all,
I've got an Ekco U29 which I got a while ago, and unfortunately today it decided to try learning to fly
Its quite badly beaten now with cracks on both sides, and a big lump busted out of it. I've noticed that the cabinet was actually made of green bakelite, was this a standard colour for this model, or have I just smashed up something rare?! It did look brown before, but looking at the edges of the broken areas it's definately green. Does anyone else have one in an unusual colour?

Regards,
Lloyd.

[Boom]

Well I have just looked carefully at my U29X and it is definitely bog standard brown bakelite. These sets are already rather rare so it looks like you may well have made a bit of a boo-boo. I'd look carefully for all the bits

[Paul_RK]

My U29 is green too, but I'm not sure I remember hearing of any others. It's an extremely dark green and has plainly darkened with the years - hard to see it's green at all except underneath and inside.

Paul

[Lloyd 1985]

Hi Paul,
Yes, it is a very dark green, I thought it was brown when I bought it!

Dave, I've found all the bits and started glueing it back together, It already had 2 cracks in one side when I got it (probably why no one else bothered with it!) I've repaired cracked bakelite before, but only black and brown. The green may present a few problems, mainly the difference in colour the deeper you go!

The sad thing is, I only took it down from its shelf yesterday to see about fixing the blown dropper. I still haven't worked out how it managed to slide off a flat surface

I've added some pics of the damage, and of the inside of the cabinet, you can see the green quite well in the bottom of the cabinet.

regards,
Lloyd.

[Mark the Mender]

Lloyd,
ouch! some filler perhaps?
I am sure you will get it right though.

cheers Mark

[Lloyd 1985]

Hi Mark
Yes, ouch indeed! I will be using superglue as a filler, I've had some excellent results on black and brown bakelite, The most recent was a huge Cossor, which had a bash on the front edge, there was quite a big chip out of it too. I glued all the bits back in then filled the chips with glue, let it go off for a couple of days then sanded it back with p600 wet and dry, with a drop of T-cut to stop the dust. Then polished up with paste polishing no.5, T-cut then Briwax. The glue sets like glass, and looks like it takes on the colour of whatever is underneath it, making the damage almost invisible unless viewed under a bright light at close range. Hopefully this method will work for the Ekco, but as there's so much colour difference depending on depth, I'm not sure.

I've added some shots of the Cossor, the before and after! you can still see the cracks just if you look closely, Definately an improvement though!

Oh, and sanding bakelite is a bad idea, Just in case it has asbestos in it.

Regards,
Lloyd

[mark pirate]

That sounds like a good tip, that cossor cabinet has come out really well, i have a dac 90a case that is really broken, i will give your method a try, i have used superglue for gluing bakelite in the past with good results, but never tried it as a filler.

Mark

[Mark the Mender]

I find the trouble with super glue is the residue due to the fumes. It leaves a white residue (ideal if you want fingerprints from plastic) due to the chemical reaction.
I would be inclined to use contact adhesive, but if there are chunks missing and a car body filler is needed, then we are into respraying cabinets, something I have not done, French Polishing yes, but nothing like that on bakelite.

cheers Mark

[Lloyd 1985]

Hi Mark,
Would that be the DAC90a that I saw in your other thread? The secret is to make sure as many of the edges as possible fit together smoothly to begin with, I spent ages scraping and filing on the inside of the cabinet first to at least get the edges flush (the inside looks a right mess!!) Once it all sits flat, and you can close the cracks up then start glueing, and it should all set nicely ready to sand it (best done outdoors with dustmask).
If you end up having to remove loads of bakelite to get the bits flat, then you can always use my other favourite bakelite repair stuff - fiberglass! That adds a bit of strength back to the cabinet.
On a positive note, I've got all the bits of the cabinet and started glueing, So far so good, Although the lighter green of the cracks is showing through. I may end up sanding the whole cabinet to try to get the colour right

Regards,
Lloyd

[Lloyd 1985]

Hi,
The white residue isn't a problem, once the glue is given a couple of days to go off fully you can sand it off, and it doesn't come back And once the cabinet is polished up it looks fine.
So far the best cabinet repair I've done was my little Bush VHF80c, which the post office demolished for me, That was the set I found out about the glue trick on, Mostly by accident! I'd glued it and the glue had run out through the crack, so I sanded it then wondered what would happen if I polished it? So I tried it, and it worked quite well, much to my supprise! The thread on that can be found on here, I think it was called 'Bush VHF80c back from the dead'. That set is still looking good, and the white residue didn't come back, I even took the set to the Festival of Vintage at York as part of a display earlier this year.

Regards,
Lloyd.

[mark pirate]

Would that be the DAC90a that I saw in your other thread?

Hi Lloyd, yes, it is the set, luckily it is a clean break, so should glue together quite well, i will need to borrow some clamps to hold it until it sets, like you, i use fibreglass car filler to reinforce the inside of the cabinet, the good thing about dac 90 cabinets is they are quite thick, so a greater surface for the glue to bond to.

With this set there is nothing to lose!

Mark

[chipp1968]

I had one of these in the 80s and I thought it was brown, but inside and where it had chips at the rear corners it was definitely very dark green

[Lloyd 1985]

Hi again
its good to know there's at least 2 others then
I've made some progress, the cabinet is in 1 piece again, all glued up and a strip of fiberglass to add some strength to the badly damaged side. 2 of the cracks were already there when I bought it, which I'd left, now their finally glued and quite solid.

The colour difference between the surface of the bakelite and the underlying material is quite noticeable, from a muddy brown to lime green!

I've sanded down the entire cabinet to try and get the green to be more uniform, as I had green patches where it had been sanded amongst brown, It didn't look good! I used P400 (NOT recomended!) followed by some P2000 sanding pads I found that came with my orbital sander

I don't recomend P400 as it leaves lots of fine scratches that are VERY hard to polish out. P600 would be the most coarse I'd normally use, but I ran out of that.

I then polished half the cabinet with T-cut, then gave up as my shoulder was knackered The results are as I predicted earlier, the cracks are mostly still visible, as they were not clean breaks, and the lime green shows them up like highlighter pen! The cabinet looks good to me though, its back in one piece, and polished up well (almost...) and all the sanding has bought out the colour a bit more! The fresh cracks definately blended in better than the old ones, probably because dirt hadn't had chance to settle in them yet.

Anyway, heres some pictures, my appologies for the awfull photography!!

Regards,
Lloyd.

And yes, the round Ekco is getting some cabinet treatment at the same time too!