Production dates of 800B receivers

[Joseph W Strickland]

Today I started looking for the production date of my 800B S/N 1035. I looked inside the rear preset tuning commutator assembly. I did not find a date there. I also looked on top of the drive motor - no date there. If there was originally a date stamped on the back of the dial plate it was removed by some cleaning effort years ago.

I have a second 800B that is S/N 6132. It has a production stamp of Jan. 15, 1947, but is not on the rear preset tuning assembly.commutator plate Instead it is stamped on one of the plated steel backing plates behind the black painted dial plate and near the function indicator dial lamps.

I did some additional cleaning in the area of the dial backup plates behind the black painted dial plate. There was considerable corrosion there. I managed to get that done. I cleaned the dial cord. You can make out the copper clad fine steel wire used in the dial cord in the picture attached. The rotary dial disc also was corroded and cleaned up well. It appears to have been nickel plated.

Some of the pushbutton switches would bind when pushed in. I carefully lubricated both front and rear areas of the shaft for each pushbutton where it passes through the metal bracket it is assembled in. An application of Deoxit cleaner on the switch contacts was applied. All pushbuttons now work smoothly.

Joe

[Norman S Braithwaite]

I have found a date stamp on the inside of the commutator shroud at the location identified in the photo below on every 800B tuner I have inspected.  Is that where you looked?  Without disassembly, a very bright flashlight and a rubber neck are required.  Chassis 1035 was produced near the end of March or beginning of April 1946.

Norman

[Joseph W Strickland]

Norman;

Thanks to your picture I now understand exactly where to look. I wound up removing the small angle bracket that helps attach the commutator assembly to the back of the chassis. I used a very bright LED flashlight that allows one to focus the light in a small area. I could see some faint lettering showing "1946" but the rest was very difficult to make out due to dust. I brought out my artists camel hair brush and brushed away enough of the dust and finally made out the date, 1 Apr. 1946, so it went into a cabinet the first day of April in 1946. It is then and April's Fool set! It would be interesting to learn who the original customer was. Unfortunately there was no such documentation with the set. There is a small piece of paper (a tag? or label?) down in the bottom of that area. I need to see if I can fish it out.

[Joseph W Strickland]

It sure would have been nice if sales information from the dealers had been saved by someone years ago. Does anyone have any idea what happened to the records of E H Scott Radio Laboratories when they went out of business?

In restoring the Hallicrafters SX-25 that I own, I learned that Hallicrafters documentation was destroyed by the company that purchased the remaining stock of equipment etc. when Hallicrafters was near the end of their existence. Restorers have managed to gather a number of interesting facts on their radios over the years, but very little of the original documentation of their sets was saved.

Joe

[Norman S Braithwaite]

EH Scott records went the way of Hallicrafters records, disposed of by a successor company in the late 1950s or maybe early 1960s. The inspection date was added when the chassis were completed or tested after which the chassis were stored for later use as orders arrived. However it is very likely that chassis made during the first few months of production were installed in cabinets with little delay.