30 into 23 will go

[mike hadley]

I thought that I would like to share the last installment of my Philharmonic,

the cabinet started life as an Allwave 23 Tasman, but the radio has sadly long gone, and there was some horrible modifications done to the back of the cabinet top cross member, in fact this was nearly cut in two,

here is the cabinet just removed from the car,

as you can see in the next photograph the previous owner had a lot of trouble with the radio,

the grooves are nearly 1/8 inch deep,

to remove the shelf there are two hidden nails, they are underneath in the corners about an inch in from the rear,

the cabinet was flipped over to get these out.

After I pulled the nails I found that the shelf was also glued in, 80 year old hide glue is fairly brittle, despite this the shelf had to be cut out,

using the old front panel to locate the original screw holes, an mdf panel was cut and fitted. This allowed the positions of the dial parts and the bottom edge of the radio chassis to be marked inside the cabinet,

this measurement is critical as all panel positions are taken from this datum line.

I then cut a new front panel from 9mm Baltic plywood, using a router for the dial hole, and a jigsaw for the speaker grill, using a guide to keep the grill lines straight and parallel.

The panel was then coated in shellac, in the photo there was about 4 coats so far,

At this point the new panel looks awful, the answer is to keep adding coats of shellac, once a decent thickness is built up, about 10 coats or so, this is sanded back with 400 grit wet n dry Using turpentine as lubricant,

and then metal polish as a finish this will leave a high gloss like a piano.

I then fitted the panel to the radio to make sure that everything was going well.

I could not resist putting the bezels in place for the photo, the speaker cloth was fitted to a new baffle board made from 3/4" plywood, placed in position for effect.

The new internal shelf was cut from a pine board, these are sold for home projects, it's fairly knot free and sanded to size, the thickness is perfect at 3/4 "

the board was cut to clear the existing side grilles and mounted on oak blocks, glued and screwed to the cabinet sides

the radio chassis, amp, and speaker converter (I don't have the original speaker) along with a new 15" speaker was fitted, it's tight but it does fit,

the only problem is the chassis hangs out of the cabinet, so I decided to make an extension, rather than removing the veneer and rebuilding the sides I made a removable frame to fit.

This was painted satin black, and fitted with sash window locks, when fitted this frame is obvious but not wrong, and it will be facing the wall.

here is a picture of the philharmonic next to my Allwave fifteen, not my original intention to have a pair of Tasman cabinets, but over here in the UK Scott parts are as rare as...., beggars can't be choosers.

and her is a photo of the radio on and playing, sorry there is no sound.

the knobs are homemade, there is another post for those,

the dial is laser cut by me as the purchased one was 2% too big and the station ident's did not align, but that's another story.

Thanks to all of those members involved for the photographs, dimensional drawings, and most of all the motivation.

Mike

[Scott Seickel]

Nice job Mike.  I assume it is playing well now. 

I have a Waverly Grand cabinet that I would love to see a Philharmonic in.  The veneer on it is shot, so maybe one day it will get a full rebuild with some extra depth. 

[David C. Poland]

What a project!!

Lowering the receiver shelf appears to have cost you the clearance for the correct 15 inch speaker speaker.

Still, an attractive result.

There are more decent Scott sets than Scott cabinets to hold them. If you intend to play them, they sound better in a sturdy cabinet. 

[Thomas Day]

Excellent work.