Arvin 451TL
 

Here's an Arvin 451TL that was among some stuff given to me by a nice elderly man who's garage roof had collapsed. This set was wearing a coat of grit and had no tubes or cord, and some rust on the topside of the chassis. After testing the coils and transformer, I gave it a go.

After a lot of cleaning, I totally recapped the set except for one mica capacitor I didn't have a replacement for. I put in a set of tubes and the set played for a half an hour, when the dial light shorted out and smoke appeared.

Turns out, the 35W4 rectifier developed a short and overheated the resistors for the dial light and the filter circuit. After clearing that situation up the set plays very nicely. Eventually I will get a new 5" speaker for her, as it is distorting a little and is very brittle, and the dust cap is gone.

I also need to research the correct way to polish bakelite and do a little more cleaning - but I'm happy to have been able to resurrect this set after 40 years of hibernation.

I've always liked those sets; but, have never obtained one for one reason or another. I've used brown or black shoe polish on bakelite cases. Sometimes they turned out good and sometimes they didn't. I think antique electronic supply sells some high priced plastic polish; but, I can't say how well it works.

I've used the fancy AES polish, and the novus #2 that they offer is pretty nice stuff for polishing bakelite and plastic. Of course, you could always go to any auto supply and buy any of the myriad of buffing/polishing abrasives that they offer and get more for much less money.

I always wondered how these looked lit up as far as the dial goes. Very cool! Thanks for sharing!
-Tony

I've had VERY good results polishing Bakelite w/Meguier's Body Scrub, followed by a couple coats of Meguier's Pure Carnauba Wax...After you go over it w/the Body Scrub, it'll look like ass, but after a couple coats of the wax, it'll positively GLOW.

I couldn't get a good picture of it in the dark, but the stars are printed on the plastic lens and on the gold bezel behind it, so when you're not looking at the dial straight-on, there appears to be a "double-image." You can see it in the first picture.

Thanks for the polishing tips folks - I have some Novus polish, so I'll try that first.

Well, the Novus isn't working - it seems to leave a haze in the bakelite. This radio was "in the elements" for years. I'm going to try the Meguier's later today and let y'all know how it turns out.

Here's mine