Philco 60 restoration
 

I figured I start a new thread on this Philco since it's no longer a mystery ;)

I brought it inside and took a closer look at it. The cabinet is nicer than I realized at first.

Of course, it has the dreaded metal caltrop feet. I pulled those and put on some felt pads :yes:
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Here it is next to my 70 which has been badly refinished (not by me!).
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I really hate the way they hard-wire these speakers. The only way to pull the chassis is to cut them or pull the speaker too.
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There's been some work done on it. Looks like they just tacked the new caps across the old :nono: There are some new resistors too.
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I should probably get a new dial scale since this one has warped.
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Thanks for the info - I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Would the controls on a Midwest line up in this cabinet ?

I was doing a little research and stumbled across Phil's excellent restoration writeup: http://www.antiqueradio.org/philc08.htm

That will be a big help for sure :yes:

I've always redone the wiring on Philco speaker harnesses-they just don't seem to hold up that well. I have a roll of cloth-covered brown wire for just such a purpose. As far as the tacked-on repairs go, that is how they all seem to have been done. I know Philco had radio-counter displays so you could grab the replacement bakelite block you needed, but they apparently never sold many of them.

I restuff bakelite blocks, but I don't use the heat gun/oven methods, I just pull the block, and chisel out the guts with a small screwdriver. It takes about two minutes to get them all cleaned out. One of the blocks in my 60 had two mica caps in it, so I just let it be, since the other micas in the set tested fine.

I'm always harping on this, but I would put a plywood bottom shelf under that speaker all the way to the back of the cabinet to enclose the bottom of the speaker compartment. The way they made them there's an acoustic short circuit from the front to the back of the cone: result, less bass.

I have some three-conductor cloth covered repro. wiring around here somewhere too. The guts are popping out of a couple of these already so I'll try your technique. Hot stinky tar isn't much fun :yuck:

There's also a 5-section cap in a metal box. I hope that won't be a pain to restuff.
I hope I won't need to do an alignment.
I'm amazed at how many trimmer caps there are. Something like 7 in total.
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Thanks for the suggestion. Once I get it working, I'll do a comparison with and without a bottom shelf.

Philco may have done it (less bass) to avoid too much hum from the power supply.

Seems that (some) early moving-coil speakers, especially those with the spider screwed into the center of the pole piece, had a kind of stiff action and didn't have all that good bass response and so the power supply didn't have to have the best filtering, and since larger filter caps were expensive...could be that the speaker, the speaker mounting, and the supply filters were all serendipitously ideal for the situation.

I think I read somewhere another idea about cleaning out those capacitor blocks: put them in the freezer for a while and the tar is easier to chisel out. Does that ring a bell?

The metal box isn't tough to work on. Just undo the nuts, pull back the tabs on one of the sides, and the wax-covered guts just slide right out. You'll spend more time wiring the replacement caps and wiring harness up.

I used to use an old pencil soldering iron, and plunge that into the tar on those black bakelites. Usually working one side of the cap, you could gently pry the whole assembly out. Have to be careful not to apply too much pressure to the side of the bakelite case, or it can break. Don't forget to check for soldered leads on those. It was a little messy but not bad. I think freezing the caps might be another option though I never did that myself. Keep us posted!

I think your dial scale may be fine. Most of them are warped. I would try placing it in a warm location and weighing it down to straighten it out. That might help. I would try doing that before getting a repro scale.

Gilbert

Thanks for all the great tips! I'll definitely keep you guys posted. I plan on digging into it soon :)

make sure to do videos :-]

For sure. Two up already - check my channel.
I decided to take a little time tonight and try to spruce up the cabinet.

Here's the top as found
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I used some Howard's Restore-a-Finish Walnut on it and slowly worked out the paint and stains.
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The fluting had some nicks and dings. The Howard's hides it a bit as would some stain.
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I used a brush dipped into Howard's to clean out the recessed areas and steel wool to clear off the paint.
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I can't do much about this kind of damage :tears:
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I follow the Howard's Restore-a-Finish with some Feed-n-Wax (orange oil and beeswax) and some Old English Lemon oil. This old wood was really thirsty :yes:
Here's how it turned out. Still some more cleaning to do in the nooks and crannies, but otherwise a great improvement.
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I do like to preserve and old finish when possible :)
I certainly has more character than that badly refinished 70.
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Can anyone spare a couple black hex knobs ?

I've started poking around with this chassis. It has some deeply rusted areas and the tuning capacitor doesn't turn very well.
The tubes clean up nicely though :)
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A closer look revealed a few bent plates. I straightened them out and cleaned out some of the dirt. It's rotating freely now.
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I'm going to remove all the old repairs and restuff the filter caps.
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Looks like a candidate for a soap up, scrubdown, and rinse. In this kind of weather, sitting it on an old towel in the bathtub!

I gave it a bit of a cleaning and it's a little better.
I'm not a fan of painting chassis in general, but I think I'll give it a go on this one. So much of the cad plating is gone.

Here's a little test I did last summer using "stainless steel" (top) and "chrome" (bottom) enamel spray paint. I think the chrome is a pretty good match for cadmium plating.
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I removed that grungy tuning cap and gave it a bath. Then used some naval jelly to remove the rust.
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That gave me a chance to repack the planetary drive bearings too.
I washed off all this old grease and gunk using WD-40 and repacked with general purpose white lithium grease.
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I sprayed the copper fork thingy with contact cleaner to make sure the movable plates were making good contact with ground.
It's working very well now :)
Physically that is. I still need to get the radio working electrically ;)
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Wow, you and PaulOF have both got me really excited about trying to make my radio look better. I fixed it electronically, but its appearance can definitely use the tender loving care you guys have shown your sets. Looks like I'll be getting some 0000 steel wool, Gojo, and some Restor-a-Finish tomorrow.

I've heard about Gojo for a while but have never tried it. Last weekend while picking up an air filter I noticed some right next to the register and finally picked some up. Can't wait to try it on something :D

I also stumbled across these Bob Flexner furniture restoration videos recently. Great tips on sprucing up an old finish, stripping, staining, grain filing, etc. Fantastic stuff :yes:

Here's a link to part one of seven: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GChxt...yer_detailpage

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Oh wow. What a beautiful job on that tuning condensor. On the chassis, I'm curious about what those two big old fahnstock clips on either side of the filter cap clamps are for.

That tuning condenser looks delicious! Beautiful.

Of the hand cleaners for use on cabinets, I really like Goop Orange with no pumice. It smells great (you'd wish you could eat it!) and does a good job on cabinets and on hands. I get mine at Horror Fright.

Paul: Fahnestock clips: Philco liked to use those for antenna & ground connections.

Thanks! Citri-Strip reminds me of orange pudding - so tempting to take a taste :)

Yep, those are the ground and antenna connections.

I love how you explain and document your work. Great job!

Thanks. I figure the tuning knob sees the most use so it should have a smooth action.

This radio was missing two of the hex knobs. Since then I've picked up a couple more smaller knobs and one larger.
I think the original used four small, but I really like having the one larger knob on the tuner.

Thanks for the link on furniture restoration. I'll definitely give those videos a watch before I start.

Personally, I love the smell of Gojo because it always brings back memories of my dad. He was an auto mechanic and used it religiously for cleaning the grease off his hands. I figure if it was good enough for that, it can take off 70 years of accumulated grease and oil on my radio.

He goes fast in those videos but covers an amazing amount of topics. I definitely recommend repeated viewings.
I got some of the lithium grease on my hands and boy does it stick. I was glad to have the Gojo handy.


I've been putting weight on it for about a day and it is showing signs of improvement. We're heading into another cold spell though so I'll need to put it near a space heater to keep it warm.

They told me that back home the little theatre group actors, to take the makeup off their face, used ......they needed so much of it, that they used......cans of Crisco!

wheres the youtubes ?

It's starting to show some signs of life :)
I pulled the 80 and simulated it's filament with a power resistor. With about 110 VAC on the primary, all the secondary voltages are looking good.
The #47 dial bulb was blown, but I had a replacement handy.

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YOUTUBES. hehe.

Maybe in a couple days. I don't have time to do the editing.

Glad to see it is coming along. In mine, at least one of the bakelite blocks only had a mica cap in it, so I left that one be, as it didn't test as leaky. I'll be curious if you can get the dial to track properly, as mine is about 50kc off on the low end of the dial, the trimmers just wouldn't compensate that far, but reception was excellent, better than a comparable Atwater Kent that I have.

There are several 110 pF micas in the bakelite blocks. I already picked up replacements so figure I'll go ahead and use them. I hope to fire it up in a few days.

I've finished unmounted and unstuffing all the bakelite block capacitors. Also the tone control and metal box cap.

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It actually wasn't all that bad. Next, I'll clean up the tubs and mount new caps inside.
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Hi bandersen,

I just saw your latest video--great stuff, as usual!

If I remember correctly, the depth--and therefore the "mesh"--of the tuning capacitor plates can be easily tweaked using that nut/screw arrangement on the back. It is an adjustment used to change the point at which that single rear ball bears vertically on the end of the rotor shaft. Tightening the screw pushes the ball and rotor forward, and vice versa; the nut locks it in place when everything is nice and centered.

Thanks! I'm sure you're right although the nut/screw are pretty well fused together on mine. Luckily the scraping I had was only on one set of plates rather that the whole rotor shaft being out of whack. A little tweak to the position of the fixed plates in that section cleared it right up.

I've restuffed the block caps with the aide of all the great info at philcoradio.com
I don't see any point in refilling the tubs with anything since the open side faces the chassis.
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The 8035-D was confusing though. It doesn't match what philcoradio.com showed. It also doesn't follow the usual wiring where both caps are connected to the lug terminal.
Instead, the terminal opposite the lug is the common terminal.
http://www.bobandersen.com/images/Ph...060/8035-d.jpg

I have to agree with this. A 250Hz tone has a wavelength of about 4ft, so at least a partial acoustic short circuit would exist here, right in the critical lower midrange. 100Hz material, if deliverable from this set (I suspect it is), would pretty much be cancelled out.

It would appear that the 8035-D is wired correctly with the mounting lug being the ground end of the .00011 mfd. cap.

I'll definitely do a comparison with and without once I get it running.

Yeah, I followed the schematic so it should be OK.

Speaking of schematics, I couldn't find this gooey looking thing on mine. I did a little research and discovered that it's a wavetrap added to later revisions. The bubbling goo appears to be old wax.
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Here's the rebuilt metal box cap.
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Call me crazy, but I don't like rust. So, I unmounted the power transformer and removed the clamshell covers.
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Then, I removed the rust and sanded them a bit.
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Here they are after some primer. Next up, some black enamel.
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Oh yeah, that web site on the progression of circuit changes in the Philco model 60 is essential. From that, I was able to determine mine was the last revision.

On the Nostalgiaair website, there is an article: The Philco Model 60 Repair That Almost Wasn't, where the poor guy basically goes to recap the thing, says, hey- this radio has some weird changes, and alters his Philco back to the original style, only later realizing that those changes were intentional!