new philly

[mike hadley]

I managed to get my hands on a pointer dial Philharmonic, unfortunately all I have is the chassis, no power supply cabinet or speakers, the chassis number is kk-163, and Kent has added this to the database.

There are however a few issues, the chassis has had a partial recap, it has been done rather well with orange drops and sleeving on the wires, by the tarnish on the solder joints this looks like it was done quite a while ago, possibly the sixties or seventies,

the audio filter and the more awkward ones have not been replaced, so all will have to be checked, there is still plenty to do.

The dial appears to be a west coast one as some of the stations are marked KFSD, KGER, KECA etc, unfortunately the top right portion has suffered with damp and time.

There is a problem with the logging dial pointer as the idler gear appears to have come adrift,

both pointers are there but travel around the dial together.

Firstly I need to remove the dial, is there an easy way of doing this, do the lamp connections need to be un_soldered, the gearbox will be fairly easy to repair it's just getting access.

Most of the tubes have been replaced with military types, some are going to be fun to remove as they are below the bottom level of the tube shields, I think the tubes were replaced when the caps were done as the market was flooded with these after ww2,

there are also six tube shields missing, these will also have to be sourced.

I'm not sure at the moment what to do about an amp, maybe eventually either source one or build something to suit.

I have attached an image, this is as it was unpacked and put on the corner table in the workshop.

[Scott Seickel]

If you unsolder the dial lamps, the whole dial assembly will be easy to remove and work on.  You can get a reproduction dial for about $55.  The bass choke box will have to be removed to get at the 4 capacitors in there.  They form a 60 cycle notch filter.  Looks like you are missing the bracket for the eye tubes also. 

[mike hadley]

Thanks for the reply Scott,

Yes the eye bracket is missing, minor problem at the moment, just run the tubes through the tester, several duds, several low emission, maybe a new set of tubes is in order.

I will take the dial off in the morning and fix the gearbox, should be a breeze as repairing antique clocks and watches is my other passion.

[David C. Poland]

the correct Philharmonic amp will have four 6L6 output tubes (not two, but four.) Tube numbers are embossed on the octal tube sockets. The amp has two rectifier tubes - for early production were 5Z3, and later starting about 1940, changed to 5U4, but your Philharmonic would be from 1937 or 38, but either version amp is compatible .

Beware the later Phantom amp looks just like the Philharmonic at first glance, but has only two 6L6 tubes and two 6J5 drivers - not suitable for a Philharmonic. 

for info on knobs and speakers, review other threads on this website.

[mike hadley]

Thanks for this Dave,

I can see the minefield with amps,

What would be ideal for me is a basket case, transformers I can get rewound, (we have 240v 50cyc mains here in the uk)

A basket case would be ideal, as long as the chassis is ok I should be good to go.

The other future problem I may have is the 60hz filter in the audio, should I leave this alone or change the caps to suit any opinions on this would be a great help.

As for the knobs, I can make these, I'm in the process of making an atu for my aw15, and have made a jig to cut blanks, walnut with maple inserts, involves a little lathe work, but after a coat of shellac they are identical to the originals.

Can you or a member of this site please provide me with the dimensions of the dual tuning knob, a couple of photo's would be a great help

This morning I am pulling the dial assembly, I will clean off 80 years of dirt and repair the idler gear, hopefully the wiring should be ok.

[Scott Seickel]

Hi Mike,

As for the notch filter, that can easily be adjusted by varying the capacitor values slightly. When you are ready, I have a Spice simulation that I can send you to find out what values will work best.

The original knobs for this set are plastic and not wood.  Very few early sets had octagon knobs, and very few had metal levers for the volume and bandswitch. 

All plastic would be the most common setup for this set.  You should be able to find these knobs with a bit of patience.  They were used by other manufacturers. 

This is a complete set for a dial pointer used in a Gothic Grande cabinet:

The main tuning knob is 1-3/8" dia with the fine tuning knob 1" dia.  The outer knobs are 1-1/16" dia. 

[mike hadley]

Thanks Scott,

i was going to reproduce a set of knobs aw15 style, this is still a fair way off,

the dial is now off and the mechanics cleaned and repaired, tho old lubricant had set like concrete, took best part of the morning to get apart, I will post the results here as I think that they may be of use

i will have to find a new dial maybe radio daze as the old one left most of the printing on the green filter, better than some of the old uk type glass dials where you only have to look at them and the print is gone.

mike

[mike hadley]

Removing the dial from a philharmonic,

the logging scale was not working, the tuning was very stiff, the log pointer and tuning pointer traveled around the dial together, this was because one of the drive gears had come adrift,

only one way to fix this problem, strip and fix

First set the dial to one end of its travel, with the pointer horizontal and the logging dial at "0"

remove the pointers by removing the screw, and unsolder the wires from the chassis to the dial lamps.

then the screws under the dial assembly can be removed, the ones circled in the photo, the ones from my chassis were missing, there is one either side of the shaft.

then remove the two screws holding the dial assembly to the chassis, and loosen the two set screws holding the flexible coupling to the tuning cap shaft, as marked in the photo

the whole dial assembly can then be lifted away.

next carefully pry up the tabs holding the glass and green plastic filter, place these somewhere safe,

the four screws under the filter can then be removed

the plate can then be removed, making sure that any spacer washers are kept and their positions noted,

the next photo shows this

remove the four screws in the center of the dial, these were tight, a good fitting screwdriver will help,

holding the plate to the remaining assembly, flip over to reveal the rear screw, this is located deep inside the shaft.

the assembly is flipped back over and the plate is carefully moved to one side,

revealing the logging scale gearbox, note the loose gear, this will have to be repaired,

the gearbox can be removed from the rear plate by undoing one screw.

this will let the gears come away from the back plate, the rear shaft runs in a brass bush, the grease has dried out and this was fairly difficult to remove, once cleaned this is a push fit,

make sure that the routing of the wires is noted.

the reason why the gear had come loose was because of a previous repair, the shaft had been soldered to the frame, you can see the blob of solder in the photograph.

I decided to leave the old solder in place as I did not want to apply heat to the part, instead the hole was countersunk and the shaft riveted back in place as it was done originally,

the rest of the parts, were cleaned, the original grease and lubricants had set hard, soaking in alcohol and running through the ultrasonic bath cleaned most of this off, but the anti backlash gears were stuck together,

perseverance paid off here,

the next part is to clean the slow motion drive,

the nut on the inside of the assembly is undone, and then carefully pulled apart, be careful not to lose the ball bearings or spring

once the old grease is cleaned off, it can be re assembled, I used moly grease, the reduction drive is now silky smooth,

the photo shows the parts cleaned prior to reassembly,

re assembly is the exact opposite if dismantling, make sure that the black plate runs in the copper drive washers and the two pulleys located at the top of the dial plate,

 I thought to post this as a picture is worth a thousand words etc..

[David C. Poland]

Nice effort to show the mechanism.

FYI - the standard brown plastic knobs are 1 inch diameter, The larger tuning knob is more like 1 3/8 inch diameter. Is what my pointer Philharmonic has.

Actually, the AW-15 AW-23 wood with inlay type knobs might be cool for your pointer Philharmonic in as much as you are geared up to make them. The instruction manual actually shows that wood style on one illustration and I believe was Norman who said he had actually seen a wood set on one  pointer dial Philharmonic.

You will want the West coast version replacement dial glass in order for the upper stack of traveling dial lamps to align with the 4 upper dial scales and the west coast station call letters across the top.

[Kent King]

FYI...I still have a few reproduction metal "bat handle" knobs as Scott pictured. When EHSHS repro'ed the bandswitch dial, we made a smaller number of the Philharmonic style knobs too. I don't have many of them. All proceeds go to defray costs of this web site...

Kent

[Kent King]

Here are a few images of the tuning eye bracket:

Kent King said:

FYI...I still have a few reproduction metal "bat handle" knobs as Scott pictured. When EHSHS repro'ed the bandswitch dial, we made a smaller number of the Philharmonic style knobs too. I don't have many of them. All proceeds go to defray costs of this web site...

Kent

[mike hadley]

Thanks Kent,

looks like a couple of terry clips and some pressed steel molding should do the trick,

I ma already have these somewhere in the junkpile.

Mike