Westinghouse Columnette Model WR-10
 

Hello Everyone, today I was given a Westinghouse Columnette Model WR-10 Tombstone radio as an extra bonus from buying an old Philharmonic TV from someone on Facebook Marketplace.

The Radio's Cabinet is completely shot (veneer missing in several spots the speaker grille molding is damaged etc.) but the chassis and the speaker are still in excellent shape yet and complete with its original tubes and original cloth cord yet.

I was wondering if this radio is worth trying to restore and trying to find another cabinet for?

Thanks for your help in this matter.

I was looking at the schematic on this radio and I noticed it does have an RF Section which is quite unusual for a radio of this vintage.

Also being that this radio is one year older than my U. S. Gloritone Cathedral radio this thing is definitely quite a bit more advanced than my cathedral Radio it even has a tape player input on the back, which is quite unusual for a radio of this vintage.

Does anyone know anything about this radio and what I have here?

RCA and GE also sold them. Schematic under RCA Superette R7. 8 tubes with push-pull audio but no RF amp. Very nice looking radio when restored. Lots of audio power.

I've had a few RCA/GE sets from that era and amazingly they worked as-found, without recapping. I still have a GE console that I haven't powered up in a decade (shame on me!) I really need to wake it up again.

I really like the look of a Columnaire; never seen one in person that was in really decent condition. I passed on one 20 years ago, similar condition to yours but they wanted $65.

Actually if you look at the Schematic carefully, this radio actually does have an RF Amp in it, that's why its an 8-tube radio because one of the tubes powers the RF Amp.

I got mine for free from the same person that I bought my Meck TV from for $5 and surprisingly enough the chassis in this radio is actually extremely clean for as rough of shape as the cabinet was in (the person I got the TV and this radio from found both of them in an old farm house that the roof had collapsed on it 20 years ago and the TV was in extremely good shape for being in an old house with no roof for 20 years, same for the radio (except for the cabinet which was completely shot).

Magnetic tape was not a thing in the consumer realm in the US until after WWII. The input would have been meant for a phonograph. Best to call it a phono or audio input.

That's what I was thinking it might of been but thought it was rather bizarre that they referred to it as a "Magnetic Pickup" seeing as most of your modern magnetic pickups for your turntables didn't come out until the 1950s.
Although maybe the input could of been for a wire recorder which wire recorders were around at that time.

I've got another cabinet for this unit on the way that I bought off ebay for $50 plus shipping.

I've got a couple more questions about this radio, first, as you can see in my pictures that I posted that this chassis has a little bit of rust on it from being exposed to moisture for 20 years from sitting in an old farmhouse that the roof had collapsed on it 20 years ago, my question is what would be the best way to get rid of that rust?

Secondly this radio has 4 electrolytic capacitors in it and all 4 of those electrolytic capacitors are of the dry type, my question is, would I be safe keeping those in the radio and running it with those in the radio?

I'm asking because I've read from various sources that the dry electrolytic capacitors don't go bad because they don't have anything inside them to dry out and fail like a traditional wet electrolytic does.

Thanks for your help.

The wet ones were literally filled with a couple shots worth of dielectric fluid.

The dry lytics are the current design that has been in all electronics since the 30s. Sometimes the dry will miraculously survive several decades, but they usually go bad and shouldn't be trusted.

Oddly, it appears that the earliest phono cartridges were magnetic...from Wikipedia:

“The first commercially successful type of electrical phonograph pickup was introduced in 1925. Although electromagnetic, its resemblance to later magnetic cartridges is remote: it contained a bulky horseshoe magnet and employed the same imprecisely mass-produced single-use steel needles which had been standard since the first crude disc record players appeared in the 1890s. Its tracking weight was specified in ounces, not grams. This early type of magnetic pickup completely dominated the market well into the 1930s, but by the end of that decade it had been superseded by a comparatively lightweight piezoelectric crystal pickup type.”

jr

I totally missed this. Yes the RCA R7 which others have said this set was a rebadged version of was sold both as a tombstone and as a radio Phono console with this changer with a magnetic cartridge. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=87P7xygDcs0. I own a R7 tombstone and that changer mech (mine needs a cartridge though) I have plans once I find a cart to build a wood base for the changer mech and wire it to my R7.

That’s incredible! Wonder how much that tone arm weighs? :scratch2:

jr

I stand corrected on the RF amp. The radio is from 1931 during the worst of the depression. It had no AVC and used anode bend detection (cathode plate) which would give some distortion. This radio was designed to be inexpensive but still good-sounding.

I downloaded and printed off the beitmans manual for this Radio and it looks pretty straightforward to service. when I took the chassis out of the cabinet took a look at the underside and it only has about 7 capacitors not including the original filter caps. It looks like the radio is basically all original and never had any repairs done to it over the years.

Did this radio have the curtain burner cord on it? I'm just curious because this radio does have its original cloth cord still intact yet that's still in pretty decent shape yet with only very minor fraying of the outer cloth sheathing but the inner wire sheathing is still intact and not frayed.

Those were only on early AC-DC transformerless sets. They hadn't found a way to make all the heaters drop all the line voltage yet so they put a 3rd conductor made of resistance wire in the cord...Most of those were not really as bad as urban ledgend.

OK so it would be safe to leave the original cord intact on the radio then?

Also I've already got 3 of the 8 capacitors capacitors replaced on the radio.

there's one capacitor in the radio that is hidden behind one of the IF Cans that the only way to get to that capacitor is to remove the IF Can and get to the capacitor then, how hard is it to remove the IF Cans in this radio?

If the cord looks fine it probably is fine... Always visually inspect if the insulation is damaged or it is excessively inflexible replacement is advisable.

The cord only has a couple of spots where the outer insulation is worn through but the inner insulation is intact yet. The cord is still pretty flexible yet.

OK so I replaced some of the paper caps in this radio and cleaned up the rust on the chassis and put the tubes back into on this radio and went to power it on to test it out and I'm getting no power, the tubes aren't lighting or anything. :scratch2::tears::sigh:

Any suggestions as to what to look for next?

Check cord, power switch and power trans for continuity...something is open.

Ok I'll check those.

OK so I figured out that the original cloth cord had an open somewhere in it on the neutral side so I swapped it out temporarily with a modern cord (planning on getting a replacement cloth cord to install on this radio when I get the chance) and it powered right up, with all of the tubes glowing nice and bright and hot.

The only thing is is that there was no audio except for some crackling noises from the volume control when you turned it up and down and tapped on the anode cap of one of the tubes. :sigh:

Although the good news is that it seems the power supply caps are still good as there was no 60 Hz hum coming out of the speaker! :yes::thmbsp::D

OK so a little update, I figured out why I wasn't getting any audio, it was because I accidentally got two of the tubes put in the wrong sockets, I put the tubes back into their proper socket and it came to life and it works perfectly! :music::thmbsp::yes:

Good job! Another one lives!

Neat trick for a cloth cord: find a long, thick brown shoe lace. Cut off the ends, they are hollow like a sock. You can then cover a new cord and it will look like an old cloth-covered cord.

I actually found a website called Merry Tunes which sells all sorts of antique radio restoration parts including cloth cord, tubes capacitors and more and their stuff is reasonably priced as well. :yes: :thmbsp:

I ordered 8 feet of brown cloth cord and a brown bakelite plug from them and a new pilot light socket (the original pilot light socket was busted) for $20 from them. :thmbsp:

So now to wait for those parts to come in (should be here by wednesday hopefully.)

Alright!

Well about a week ago I had ordered some radio parts from an antique radio restoration parts supplier based out of Kitchener, Ontario, Canada and they said they shipped the parts out on Monday and here it is Friday and I still don't have my parts.

Anyone else experience issues like this when ordering radio parts for restoring their old radios?

The Company I ordered my parts from was called Merry Tunes Antique Radios

https://antiqueradiosandparts.com/in...te=common/home

maybe some of you guys on here may have dealt with this company before and can tell me if I may have gotten ripped off or not.

I don't know them, but given the something like month customs processing delay the only time I ordered from Just Radios of Canada I try not to order anything from up there.

Ok, well when I first ordered from them I didn't realize they were in Canada until I saw their email to me saying they had shipped through Canadian post.

Well the parts came in the mail yesterday and I finished the radio off, it works excellent and it looks good too! :thmbsp: :yes: :music:

The sound isn't too bad out of it either for being from the early 1930s.

I have some pictures of the unit below.

I just turned on this radio this evening to see what kind of stations I could pick up with this radio out of curiosity and man this radio is HOT it picks up stations from all over the country, I was picking up WBBM in Chicago, ESPN 1000 out of Chicago, WGN Radio out of Chicago some stations from Northwest Ohio, a station from Cincinnati, Ohio broadcasting a Cincinatti Reds game, I was even picking up an Oldies Station from around Toronto, Canada somewhere, I think I might of even been picking up Shango's Favorite AM station KNX out of LA.

It was Amazing how sensitive this radio's tuner is and how many stations it was picking up!

This Radio is no joke when it comes to DX'ing especially at night.

Good show! Another satisfied AM DX member.