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Westinghouse
model H-126
"Little Jewel" |
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Let's
start making this radio presentable. It's the end of
September, 2017. At this time of year in south-eastern
Pennsylvania the weather can change drastically. This
morning I had my winter coat on. Now I'm wearing shorts. I
can't use spray paint inside the house. If I don't get the radio painted
soon I'll have to wait until May. Once it gets cool and
breezy and all kinds of stuff starts falling off the trees
and blowing around, you can just forget about painting
anything like this outside.
I'm using Rust-Oleum "PAINT+PRIMER" to save
time. Since I have to paint two covers, I bought "double
cover" paint. The color is "Ivory Bisque." I had to look up
the word "Bisque." Bisque is a type of soup. Ivory soup.
The Bakelite shells have been wet sanded with 220, then 400,
then 800 grit sandpaper. The crack in the top of the broken shell
has been reinforced with J-B Weld "KwikWeld" and nylon screen. |
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The
missing chunk in the bottom has been filled in with KwikWeld,
then sanded to match the original contour. KwikWeld sets in 6 minutes, so it is perfect for this. There are
three globs of KwikWeld in the right-hand photo, one on top
of the other.
To match the inside contour I used a small piece of roof flashing with wax paper taped to it. J-B Weld
will not adhere to the wax paper.
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The repair is almost completely invisible.
There are three tiny dots in it, but since it's on the bottom
I don't care. |
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Here are the
painted shells. After the paint cured for three weeks, they
got a coat of automobile paste wax.
UPDATE: I should have waited three MONTHS. Never wax
new paint, it won't cure properly. Fortunately, these came
out OK. |
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Now it's time to paint
the metal part. Should it be stripped down to the brass?
According to the ad on the left from the Saturday Evening
Post, November 1946, it says it is "gold-finish metal." What
does that mean?
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"Glasslinger" |
on YouTube
says that what you see on the radio today is "discolored
lacquer." Is it clear lacquer or is it gold lacquer? |
On the right is an example of the radio stripped down to the
bare brass. Someone has done a beautiful paint job, but the
brass doesn't look quite right. |
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The radio was painted
with gold lacquer by Westinghouse. It's not a clear
coat on bare brass. You can see where it has chipped off the
handle and you can
tell by the rivets on the bottom that the finish is
original.
When I stripped the brass with paint remover, "gold" came off
in blobs. So there is the
answer to anyone who has wondered what that awful greenish-hued
coating is on these old "Little Jewel" radios. It's
gold lacquer from the 1940s. It held up pretty well if you
ask me. |
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The brass after paint remover was used
on it and then buffed with steel wool. This was the
easiest part of the entire operation. The paint
remover was cleaned off with a blast from the garden
hose! |
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Steel wool and polish
on the shiny bits made a huge difference. Now they need to be clear coated so
they don't
oxidize. |
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To paint the rest of the brass, I'm using clear primer,
some gold paint I found in the basement and a flat clear
coat. |
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The shiny parts now had to be masked. When you're
masking small parts, the tape seems to become very thick and
hard to work with. There is probably a better tape to use
instead of "painters tape" which works great on woodwork or
a window, but not so well here. On the far left you can see
that it has lifted. That part had to be polished again to
remove the gold paint. |
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The dial had holes in the paint that made
"stars" when it was backlit.
Notice that when it is backlit the numbers are gold. |
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After
cleaning the dial, it was obvious that the scratches on the
front were never going to come out. I noticed that when it
was wet they almost disappeared. I thought of putting
mineral oil on it, but the heat from the six vacuum tubes
would probably evaporate it. Andrea suggested a clear coat
then filling in the stars from the back of the
dial with a black marker.
On the right is the dial after a clear coat and some sanding
and polishing. Considering that it was toast, I think it
came out pretty well. |
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To make a handle I bought some 1/2" PVC pipe and a poplar
dowel. The brass part of the handle is pretty much inflexible, so
the handle
would have to be made
in three pieces and inserted into the brass. The
idea was to put screws into the dowel parts, spin them in a
drill and sand them down. I don't have a drill press and it was impossible to either center the hole for the
screw or make it plumb. They wobbled like mad in the
drill chuck. |
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After several attempts I managed to get two that
were passable, then the parts were spray painted and
polished.
I have enough stuff left over to make 20 more
handles! |
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The feet were covered
with rust on the bottom and sides. I was able to get most of it off
but any indication of what color they were was gone. The
backs were no help; what was left of the paint was just a
dull gray coating. I was going to paint them brown to match
the handle.
Somebody knocked over a cup of coffee in the 1950s. It went
under the radio and when they cleaned up the coffee they
didn't wipe off the feet. Thanks, Mom.
What's that? Your husband was a Marine fighting in
Korea and you heard on this very radio that 30,000 of our
frozen and starving Marines were encircled by 120,000 Red Chinese
at the Chosin Reservoir?
And your coffee cup dropped out of your hand?
Fine! I'll clean off the rust. The things I have to deal
with! |
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I found this picture on the Internet. They
seem to be gold! That makes sense. |
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Here's another one where they sort of
look gold. |
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So I painted them gold.
After I painted them I started to reconsider. I think the
feet are silver and there is some rust on the ones that
appear
gold. Oh well, they match the brass. |
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Why was this radio in such sad shape, with no
handle, cracked case, rusty feet and scratched dial? It's because
I didn't find it in Grandpop's house, it was found in a
trash can, and it was 40 years old when it was thrown away. It wouldn't exist today except for a chance
encounter while walking down the street 30 years ago.
Whatever the outward condition, it can be made to play like it did when it was new. At least
it has that much going for it. |
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