Cleaning front of 800B Radio Chassis

[Joseph W Strickland]

I began cleaning the front of my 800B radio chassis by removing the knobs and the metal escutcheon plate behind it. That allowed me to clean the knob shafts and the detent plates of the switches in front of the chrome plated chassis metal. I already posted some pictures of that effort. Next I began to work on the vertical end brackets that hold the pushbuttons. I managed to clean the right end bracket today and took pictures of it and the left bracket that is uncleaned. You can see a significant difference. The brackets had both turned an ugly yellow-green color with some corrosion pitting. Chrome polish has cleaned up the right bracket significantly.

The same yellow-green corrosion was present on the dial lamp shrouds. I cleaned the one on the right and took a picture of both the left and right. The difference is not as evident in those pictures. There was a formed piece of paper on the inside of the shrouds that was intended to maintain a white cast to the reflected light toward the glass dial lettering. After so many years the paper used has turned a brown color. I am not sure if E H Scott put these paper reflectors in the shrouds or if a customer added them.

Joe

[Joseph W Strickland]

In the process of cleaning and polishing parts at the front of the chassis, I made the discovery that the dial lamp shrouds had paper inserts in them to reflect white light rather than the metallic color of the shroud itself. E H Scott probably added these paper inserts at the factory, otherwise a customer may have done so. In any case I removed them and measured them. They can easily be made from a piece of white paper. Here is a document with the dimensions. They are simply rolled up and slid inside the dial lamp shrouds.

Joe

[Joseph W Strickland]

Have any of you had to renew the color dots on the 800B dial glass? I have one on which someone managed to remove most of the red dot that is in front of the Phono dial lamp. The others are intact and OK, but this one has obviously had someone mess with it, likely with some sort of solvent. I have cleaned the black background metal sheet behind the dial and that is OK.

I am thinking that some sort of red paint that is translucent, not opaque or transparent would work, but do not know of a specific paint that could be used. Perhaps even a small piece of thin red paper would work.

I also cleaned the backside of the glass. I used the technique of just breathing on the glass to apply a very thin layer of condensed water on it, immediately followed by using a soft cloth to buff the glass surface clean. This works without causing any problem with the dial lettering on most all radios I have worked on with only some rare exceptions. If the dial of a radio is already beginning to disintegrate, not much can be done.

Joe

[Joseph W Strickland]

As a temporary measure, I used a single hole paper punch to punch out a piece of 3M red electrical tape. The color is right and instead of attaching it to the back of the glass, I attached it to the aperture behind the circle on the glass which was originally red. In other words it is covering the opening in the black surface behind the white circle where the red dot was. You can only see it is different if you look closely.

The pilot lamp sockets for each color dot on the dial have been cleaned and polished. Their cardboard sleeves have been repainted flat black using an artists brush and some flat black Apple Barrel #20504 acrylic paint from Hobby Lobby. The original dye that was used on them faded significantly over time.

I used mineral spirits previously to clean the wires to the eye tubes and the pushbutton switches. That helped, but was not entirely successful. I decided to try some Simple Green. I applied it carefully with Q-tips and it began to remove the remaining dingy discoloration on the surface of each wire. When I finished I can now easily identify Black, Brown, Red, Orange, Blue, Green, Violet and White wires to/from the pushbuttons. The wires to the eye tubes also responded to this treatment.

I would like to clean the large metal gear disc that engages with the electric drive motor. I have not yet determined how to remove the parts associated with the dial to get at this part.

Here are a couple of pictures.

Joe

[Joseph W Strickland]

Here is the radio chassis after the cleaning of the front has been finished. In this picture the escutcheon panel behind the knobs has been re-installed and the knobs re-mounted. It is looking much better.

I have the wooden trim panel cleaned and currently the top wooden edge is being re-glued. After the glue is dry I will re-mount this piece and take another picture.

Joe

[Joseph W Strickland]

The glue dried well enough that I could install the wood trim panel on the front of the radio again. I did that and took this picture. This particular wood trim panel was actually on the parts radio chassis that I acquired a few weeks ago. The top horizontal piece of wood came unglued so I took the opportunity to clean the wood finish with some Go-Jo waterless hand cleaner. This is often done by members of the antique radio hobby. It tends to remove surface scum accumulation and allows the luster of the wood grain to become visible again without refinishing the wood.

Even if I create a custom cabinet, I plan to keep this trim panel so that I can use it as a pattern for making a replacement in whatever type of wood I choose.

The radio chassis now looks pretty decent. There are still some areas which remain that I plan to clean and polish.

Joe