Philco 38-690 Restoration - Hagstar's Travels

Here it is before I bought it, partly delaminated and base ready to fall out.

Here she is on my porch as found, the bottom of the cabinet was *highly" unstable. The plastic wrap kept it together mostly for transport home. I let it acclimatize to my house for six months before starting work to let the moisture content even out.

Here's the damage to the right side, which is very similar to what I will show being repaired on the left. This no doubt sat on a concrete floor in a barn for many years. I first used 12 ounces of glue relaminating the 95% separated plywood that made up the very bottom of the cabinet. All these old veneer and plywood repairs require working plenty of glue as deeply as possible between the plies with a plastic putty knife or similar after blasting compressed air carefully behind to remove trapped debris and old powdered glue.

"Before" view of back- plenty of rust especially on lower amp chassis

Here's a closeup of the washboard effect on the inside veneer- all of this will be easily flattened with water-based glue and pressure. Since the inside will eventually be repainted dark brown I'll use Bondo autobody filler to replace the strips of missing veneer here.

Here's an "exploded" view of the layup for the side repair all ready to glue. I've trimmed 3 patches to fit, two for underlayment repair made of thin plywood (salvaged from an old Victor) set with grain horizontal and a face patch (trimmed on all edges except overhanging left one) of unbacked walnut with vertical grain for the top. The sides of the cabinet are an open grained plain walnut that has aged reddish so I thought at first it was Philippine Mahogany or luan but the walnut patch is a decent match for raw-wood color and great match for grain. Note the 2" x 4" fragment used hanging off the edge of the particle board (screwed with flush screws from the bottom) to allow clamping action despite the "rolled" corner. The corner veneer does normally stick up a bit and would have prevented full clamping pressure on the side. The smaller piece on top goes inside.

Close-up of the separated boards that make up the solid wood core of the panel before application of generous amounts of Titebond II. This split PLUS all the peeled veneer inside the cabinet, and top patches will all be relaminated at once.

During clamp up- note transverse blue handled clamp that is pulling the *inside* core of the panel together across while the veneer layers are being clamped down. The sandpaper pad lower right keeps it from slipping off the curved face. There's no ideal glue for this purpose- I use Titebond II (crosslinking PVA) as it sets harder, soaks through less, and has a longer working time than regular PVA. You end up with glue all over you and things because of the need for speed in getting it all coated and then clamped in a 15 min. assembly time window. The Titebond II is strong, cheap, and FAR less messy than some.

Here's after the clamps come off and after a very light sanding and edge trimming of the overhanging veneer with a blade. The patch is dead flat and flush with the old veneer, the rest nearly so. Heavy sanding will wait until the moisture content evens out- the wood absorbs water from the glue and swells, and shrinks down later. Sanding too soon can result in odd depressions appearing later. After stripping the old finish I'll stain the patch to match the rest of the side as needed, which has plenty of OEM dark toner soaked into it. I always try to do all glue steps before stripping the finish, as the old finish provides some protection from glue soaking into unwanted areas. Use diagonal cuts for patches as they blend MUCH better. VIGOROUS sanding will be needed at the bottom of this cabinet to smooth water damaged wood and blend the patches, although I usually avoid sanding a decent-condition piece after stripping.

Here is the back of a piece of the original veneer on top of the new patch. Both were wiped with mineral spirits to reveal colors. Note the match is excellent except the old walnut is redder as it tends to turn with age. Some mahogany stain will match it in.

I realized suddenly only this past week looking at reference pictures of other 690s that the entire base molding of my set was actually missing! There was no trace of the wide molding left on mine (as you can observe in the previous pictures). This is logical since the whole bottom had gotten so wet in its former barn period. I had to fashion a substitute from scratch, the original had burl walnut in a central stripe and vertical grained wood (Satinwood or bleached mahogany) in upper and lower inlays. What I came up with you see here in its raw, unfinished form. I cut 3/32" birch hobby plywood and more of the handy salvaged Victor 1/8" plywood into long 3 1/4" wide strips. Then I brushed Titebond II cut with 1/3 water onto their backs and the base of the cabinet and let it dry. I wet the faces of the strips and scored the inside of the areas to be bent around the corners, then with an iron on "Cotton" I simply ironed the the layers in place, with the birch as the first layer and the Victor plywood on top, mahogany face out. The water turns to steam and softens the wood, at the same time the heat on the glue welds together the layers.

I laid a strip of 1 1/2" masking tape down the center of the new mahogany base molding, and brushed the thinned glue over the area. I removed the tape once it dried. I cut 3/4" wide strips of cross grained walnut Paperwood veneer, a whisper thin product of real wood with a thin paper backing. These got a coat of glue and were simply ironed on too. They are SO thin the finish will fill in the recess with some sanding and no tricky cutting of a central, fitted stripe of dark veneer will be needed, yet it looks very much like the original. In this picture you can see too how I've dye stained the veneer patch (on left) shown previously- it looks darker as the surface was still dull as it had only dye stain on it which has no oil or film forming qualities. The rest of the cabinet after stripping last week with Citistrip got Benjamin Moore Penetrating Oil Stain in Dark Walnut, and after these pictures it all got a 2 coats of 2 lb. cut dewaxed blond shellac from flakes.

This is after the first spray coats (shellac) and sanding and wooling, Here Extra Dark Walnut canned toner has been applied to the whitewood trim areas.

Here is the finished cabinet, after around a dozen coats of gloss Watco lacquer and 4 of satin, with plenty of 320-400 grit sanding between coats, and follow up with #0-#00 steel wool. The blue strip at top is masking tape protecting the rolltop felt.

Here's the left 3/4 view.

This is the patched area of the lower left side that I detailed earlier in this album, as you can see it blends very well.

Here is the finished back, the unpainted areas are covered by the 3 speaker mounting boards. After I repaired the missing inside veneer using Bondo and strips of wood over the vent slots at bottom, this received light sanding and two coats of Camo Brown spray paint, then a coat of unthinned eggshell lacquer. The label that was hanging on by a thread and removed earlier was replaced and looks good. The "feet" of the cabinet are missing in all but "before" photos. They are wood slabs 1 1/2" thick, were quite dry rotted, and are still being dealt with. The speaker mounting bar at center was almost totally reglued as well.

Here is the right side close-up, this was MUCH rougher to start and isn't perfect but good enough. I may apply some more sanding and smoothing coats of lacquer.

The old grill cloth is shown here- note how faded it became where not protected by the grill bars. I obtained new reproduction olive stripe cloth from Radio Daze.

Here's the rust bucket power amplifier after I pried out the tubes and cable plugs. I removed the rust but left everything but the transformers (which needed to come off for derusting and paint anyway) in place using Hard Tap Water Electrolysis. You can add one or two tablespoons of sodium bicarbonate (not carbonate) per gallon to soft water to make the same solution.

I take plenty of high resolution photos, these "before" shots help during reassembly

Chassis after all transformers and capacitor cans have been removed. Sockets, wiring, old paper capacitors, and resistors are all still in place. Once removed the non-plated metal parts like transformer bells got a few hours in a weak acid solution followed by overnight Naval Jelly treatment (covered with plastic wrap) and lots of brushing followed by a bicarbonate of soda water soak and then tap water rinse. BUT for the chassis electrolysis avoids the worry of getting Naval Jelly or the like in between the tube and cable socket wafers.

Here it is in my hard tap water, it has enough salts to conduct and nothing additional is needed for electrolytic derusting (although "processing time" roughly doubles). It got pretty dirty after a day of running. I used an aluminum pot lid as an electrode, it worked well without corroding except to leave some powdery oxide on the chassis. I treated it at 1 1/2 amp flow for 36 hours, brass brushed, rinsed and sprayed top and bottom with detergent cleaner, rinsed again thoroughly then soaked 8 hours in distilled water. After a shot of alcohol and compressed air it sat by the woodstove a day. http://www.holzwerken.de/museum/links/electrolysis_explanation.phtml

Here it is after cleaning and before priming. The blackened areas are black iron oxide, a stable form of oxidized iron. Before any painting it will receive a coat of Permatex Rust Treatment to handle the "micro-rust" and the small amount that reforms as the cleaned piece dries. The process has been demonstrated to reduce some rust right to iron powder that is left clinging to the surface, and this re-rusts before it can dry! In the future I will add some sodium carbonate as is traditional (for faster derusting) as I don't think this will harm the sockets etc. if thoroughly rinsed out later.

After clamp reinstallation, priming and painting

Derusted and repainted power transformers awaiting installation

The finished product EXCEPT for soldering up the topside components' almost 40 connections, a power cord, and some little brackets for the speaker wires. Paint used was Rustoleum, Black Satin from the Stops Rust line as well as Silver Metallic from the Metallic line. PlastiKote Dull Aluminum was used for 'lytic can touchup.

Philco 38-690 RF chassis before full paper and electrolytic capacitor replacement

RF chassis after recapping, that's 32 paper and 2 metal electrolytic cans with 8 total capacitor sections, ALL metal film caps used, no 'lytics

Tube shields, on right after acid dip rust removal, on left after home replating with tin

The "feet" of the cabinet were too far gone to repair so I had poplar repros made at a local cabinet shop

Here they are finished and attached to the bottom at long last, glides to still be added. I even painted underneath the feet where Philco didn't bother. As I bought it the base was a mass of delaminated plies like a deck of cards- hard to tell now!

Here she is all finished- a mere 4 years later.

A few small nicks appeared after all that time the cabinet spent waiting but I touched them up.

Tambour door is original finish but I had to glue it back together

Dial frame could use possible replacement, I think it was used on a few other models

Yes the cone that fit the speaker happened to be red. Still need to derust cable plugs......