DuMont Clifton Unveiled
 

It's been quite a long battle with this one. I've never tackled a television quite this old, but with the trusty help and the wealth of knowledge of a very good Internet friend, I think I've come to the end of the restoration road on this one. I've included a number of pictures of it's progress along the way.


This is the DuMont Clifton, manufactured in 1947, which uses an RA-102 chassis, pictured here as it arrives at it's new home in Jamesburg, NJ about 18 months ago.


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Aside from a thick layer of dust, the chassis were both in remarkably good original condition.

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The dial on the left is the AM radio tuning dial, and at the top also contains the center tuning meter for the FM and TV functions. The dial on the right is for tuning the FM radio and the TV. The Inductuner was an interesting experience. A bit scary at first, but I took my time and carefully and thoroughly cleaned it. It seems to work quite well. Along the bottom of the chassis you can see the controls usually relegated to the back of the set. It makes more sense to have them accessible from the front so you can watch the screen as you adjust it.

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The underside of the main chasis showed very little evidence of previous repair work, but the paper/wax caps were decomposing.


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The safety glass gave a clear indication that this TV set lived in a household inhabited by smokers.

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There were so many different issues that cropped up during this restoration, I could spend an entire "Thread" talking about all of them, but here are a few of the highlights. I found that about half of the carbon controls were bad. The carbon was lifting right off of the track and causing total control failure. Lucky for me I have a good supply of replacements on hand. The video detector diode was bad, as was one of the video peaking coils (thanks Tim!). There were many many out of tolerance resistors all throughout the set, and several wire wound resistors were open. The rest of the "issues" were mainly cap replacements and audio alignment. The crt which appears to be a factory original tests quite strong and looks quite good for it's age.

Lucky for me, the cabinet was in very good condition and only needed some minor work on the base and a general clean up to bring it back to like new appearance.

Here are the finished main chassis and power supply chassis:

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And finally after more than 6 months of intense work, frustration, and persistance, here's the final product.

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It's been a very interesting and sometimes frustrating experience, but never a dull one. I've learned a lot and enjoyed myself in the process and I guess that's what it's all about.

Bob

Wow! Great job and a very cool set and a awsome picture on it, Thanks for sharing.

Kudos - you did a fantastic job!
This has always been one of my favorite sets and it's so cool to see one come to life :D

Bob, that's an extremely sharp picture on that set!! Awesome!!

Gorgeous set, and you couldn't ask more from the picture. Persistence pays off!

When I grow up, maybe I'll find one like that :)

Phil Nelson

That is just beautiful!
The person that owned that when it was new must have been a high roller!

Fantastic job Bob and a wonderful set. The cabinet style is certainly unique and looks like the English designs of the period. The Clifton was the first set that I ever came across that seemed worth saving. I found it on the curb on garbage day about 25-30 years ago. Mine though was missing the power supply chassis, probably it was taken out for service and it never got re-united with the set. Someday I'll get it running. Great save there and congratulations.

I'm in love....

What an inspiration for me as a beginer..
What a nice job and restoration. Can you comment of what you did with the finish and what year these were manufactured?
Wondering what years...somone would have $800 for putting down on a tv?

In two words:

Stunningly. Beautiful.:banana:

This set was offered for sale by DuMont in 1947, and yes I guess it's most likely that the person who could afford this kind of quality product would have been very well off in life.

As for the finish on this piece, there was very little that I had to do with it. As you can see in the very first picture I have posted, when I brought the set home it looked very presentable. It sat for many years in the dining room of the original owner's grandson on Long Island. It was one of those lucky few old non working TV sets that didn't end up in a damp musty basement or a garage. What I did do to it was to go over the finish using Meguiar's Automotive past wax. I think any good wax will do, I just happened to have this brand on hand and it worked quite well. It cleaned all of the old smoker's crud off of the finish and left a very nice bright clear sheen behind. I also did need to do a little work on the base. One of the seams had opened up and I had to remove it (it's screwed on) and reglue it.

That's about it...

Thanks to all of you who took the time to look and comment ....I appreciate that a lot!
Bob

MAGNIFICENT job, and beautiful set! That's how a DuMont should look!!!

Charles

You are very talented, and patient!

NICE! love the heavy duty look of the chassis. Sometimes I think the tar from the smoke may actually be good as it seals everything from moisture.

Bob,

Congratulations on a very nice professional restoration. As an aside, the large controls on the front always reminded me of something off Captain Video's viewing screen. But, then Capt. Video was produced and broadcast on the old DuMont Network. Maybe they used a Clifton as a prop.

-Steve D.