Question about Shipping an 800B radio-tuner chassis

[Joseph W Strickland]

I bought an 800B radio tuner chassis that has the spring latches on the side and the slide rails fastened to it. Should those be left in place for shipping or should they be removed and placed in the box in separate wrapping? I don't want the pieces to arrive bent or broken.

Joe

[Kent King]

Joe -

It's a shame we are so far apart. I have a cabinet for an 800B that'd I'd gladly part with. Shipping it halfway across the country isn't very practical though.

Kent

Joseph W Strickland said:

Kent;

Thank you very much for your kind offer. I will give a report after the units arrive and I have had some time to inspect them.

Dave;

The cabinets for 800B receivers seem to be just this side of hen's teeth for availability. I have been watching eBay for cabinets and so far have only seen a few complete receivers in cabinet offered and those have been mostly the Chippindale cabinet. Those were likely the most popular cabinets of that period. I read the description of how the blonde finish was created on the cabinets that have it. It is more involved than that of the more conventional mahogany finish. I remember having a twin bed as a child that was finished in this manner. Personally, I never cared for that type finish, but I understand that some people like it and even prefer it.

Many of the Scott receiver cabinets of the 1930s were if the Art Decco style. Some of those were quite beautiful in their execution and had wonderful in-laid veneer trim that really highlighted the style. There were also other styles echoing famous period styles of the Italian, French and English furniture from decades or even centuries previous. Many of those had very ornate hand carved trim that is difficult to duplicate, especially with machine tools. Some radios even had tapestry type or embroidered grill cloth over the speakers and some had hand painted or stained grill cloth. There are some fine examples among the cabinets that E H Scott made available to the public.

I will continue to watch for a cabinet for at least one of my 800B receivers, but I am not holding my breath.

Joe

[Joseph W Strickland]

This unit arrived today and I had time to do a quick inspection. Everything appears to have made the trip intact and without getting bent. The amplifier chassis should arrive either tomorrow or Friday.

Part of today was spent cutting 3/4 inch thick strand board for a bass reflex enclosure for the 15 inch woofer, mid-tweeter and cross-over network to be installed in. I will be using it while I test the receiver. The cabinet will be about 6 cubic feet capacity with a 4 inch diameter port of about 8 to 9 inches length. Tomorrow I should manage to cut the mounting hole for the woofer. I plan to mount the tweeter in its center like Scott did. When I get around to building a custom cabinet for the receiver the speaker will slide inside that cabinet and be fastened in place.

JoeYou can see the pole piece vent on the back side. The woofer voice coil is a 2 inch diameter.

Joe

[Joseph W Strickland]

You can see pictures of the new 800B in my collection of photos here (the ones labled 1947 800B).

Joe

[Joseph W Strickland]

Today I managed to open up both the radio tuner and the audio/power supply chassis boxes and examine them better. The serial number of the radio chassis is 1123, so it is among the early chassis variety like my first one. Both arrived in good shape and there is no apparent damage. It turned out that the dealer did remove the two slide rails from the radio tuner package as I had asked. They were separately wrapped in bubble pack and were under the radio chassis, so there was no risk of them being bent as I had feared.

The chrome on both units is about on par with that of the first unit I acquired - not really better and not worse either. The cover over the tuning capacitor on this one is better though so that is a plus. Overall it is considerably cleaner than the first unit I acquired, so there will be less effort needed in that department.

I discovered that the two slide rails are exactly 15 inches long. I did some looking on-line and found that Lowe's and Home Depot both carry a number of good slide rails. One of the common sizes is a 16 inch set which is the closest currently being offered to the original slides. I will have to check on the mounting holes of new ones. The OEM slide rails had mounting holes spaced 5 inches apart starting at 2 7/32 inches from the front edge of the radio tuner chassis (not the front of the aluminum trim for the knobs). The chances are that if new slides were to be used that mounting holes may have to be drilled in the metal slide rails to adapt them to the 800B radio tuner chassis. Alternatively an adapter plate might be possible to make and fit between new slide rails and the radio tuner chassis. That would move the slide rails outboard some amount which would have to be taken into account when overall mounting is done.

Joe