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Here's the back, before and after it was repaired.
 
The repair.
 
I painted it with THIS.
 
This won "Second Place" in an award given by the Ancient Order of Radio Back Repair Men. I'm a little dubious of this organization. First of all, how can it be "ancient?" Secondly, how is it that I'm The President? I've never even heard of them before today.
 
Only two of the screws holding the back on were original. To replace the rest, the heads of these were painted to match them.
I probably should not have used Phillips head screws, but I had a bunch of them.
 
The vacuum tubes were checked and they all tested new or almost new. Two of them (left) are Realistic "LIFETIME' tubes from Radio Shack with gold plated pins. If a LIFETIME tube burned out, you could get a replacement for free.

Radio Shack was pretty smart. They knew that by the time their tubes reached the end of their life, so would the technology. They could sell the LIFETIME tubes at a higher price, and I'd bet that not many people asked for a replacement. Instead, they bought a transistorized AM/FM radio with a cassette deck.
 
The fact that the tubes were so good had me worried. WHY are they all good? I could think of two reasons.
1. The owner got a new radio and never listened to this one again.
2. After replacing all the tubes, the radio still didn't work and there is something seriously wrong with it.

This radio has an old speaker type that uses an electromagnetic field coil instead of a permanent magnet. This coil is also used as part of the power supply filter. What If the coil is no good and the radio doesn't work? Is that why all the tubes are good?
 
 

 

Before and After.

Recapping was pretty easy. Except for re-wiring the pilot light socket and replacing the buried capacitor, there isn't much to relate.
That big cylindrical filter capacitor (Page 2) has been replaced with the two black and gray filter caps. They are rated at double the voltage.
 
 
 
Turned on for the first time in (probably) decades. Is the speaker field coil good? Will the radio work?
 
We wait with increasing apprehension as the tubes warm up.
It's not humming. It either works really well or it isn't working at all.
WAIT!... did the speaker just make a little pop sound?

 
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