Philco 15M91 is alive
 

I thought you might get a kick out of this shot of the Philco 15M91 I started working on two weeks ago. It's actually a floor model from ~1964 and has been stashed away for probably 30+ years. The bright stuff on the upper right of the screen is a reflection from the window shades where I'm working. It seems to be pretty much a stock model with the exception of a crt degaussing assembly which appears to be a factory addition not shown on either the Philco or Sams schematics. New electrolytics and lots of caps. More yet to go. The crt appears to be in early stages of delamination but otherwise puts out a pretty good picture.

Very nice! I have one of those in the garage waiting to be restored. I know it needs lots of caps thats why I haven't got to it yet.

Did you have to change the red/orange drops as well?

I fired mine up when I got it and the vertical, color lock, horizontal lock were all over the place. Lots of love needed

I've not changed the Sprague caps but have changed a lot of the maroon (Mallory or CDE?) caps.

Looks damn good so far! Me like.

I have one too. Mine was in a different cabinet (I'll post a picture if asked) and aside from needing the horiz freq slug adjusteded worked with all original parts as found, though I replaced some deflection caps for safety sake. Mine has mediocre focus that I may try to fix eventually.

Me likey !

Hey Ralph,

I believe that's pretty much an RCA CTC-15 chassis
w/a Philco tuner. Nice save.

-Steve D.

Thanks Steve and others. I'll say this about the Philco chassis, it's a good bit easier to work on than the CTC-16 I did previously. The Philco doesn't have nearly the web of wire that you find on a 16, crisscrossing the pc boards. What I'm really saying is this: the Philco is a lot easier to get parts on to and off of the pc boards than the RCA. But so far I am not impressed with the tuner - but this may be caused by age, corrosion and/or dirt which I couldn't get off during this first go around. I've got Phil's DeOxit 5 now and it seems to do a much better job than ordinary contact cleaner. I'll let you know how it goes next week as I do more work on the set.

The Marioon ones are possibly El Menco...

Focus the contact spray on the switches at the tuner's shaft end. Getting things too wet in the rear (r.f. section) can cause an alignment drift you may regret (especially tuners with a nu-vista r.f. amp).
Believe it or not, you can do a great job of cleaning a switch type (non-turret) type tuners by chucking an electric drill to the shaft and letting 'er rip after spraying.

Thats a nice looking bezel, too. Glad its working for you!

Bruce

Alignment drift (or detuning of the fine tuning adjustment) affects mainly the oscillator section at the front of the tuner.
Omy Gawd!.:eek::yikes: You're not serious. Or are you?:saywhat:

Wow... THAT'S hardcore, dude!! :yes:

For those of you who are not aware of the type of tuner involved here, please be aware that it is not the classic "turret" style seen on many early black and white sets. The switching elements are Centralab-style round phenolic wafer switches and are considerablly more delicate than turret types. I suspect that those who evidenced horror at the idea of chucking the tuner shaft into a drill motor and letting her rip (after cleaner spraying) are on the right side of caution!

Yeah, the holes in those phenolic wafers have flatted sides keyed to mating flats in the shaft. It don't take much for the holes to get reamed so the wafer loses its position on the shaft or does not turn with the shaft.