A Franken-Crafters
 

I think (Know?) I have a Frankenstein Hallicrafters 7". :yes:

I don't even remember for sure where this one came from, it's supposed to be a Hallicrafters model 506, the front plate is marked Hallicrafters, but the bottom of the cabinet is stenciled in large yellow letters TV-71 and a date of 1948.

The TV-71 was the Delco branded set made by Hallicrafters, same set, slightly different cosmetics, or maybe just a different Brand Decal?

Seems someone made one set out of two, the screws holding the front panel in were pretty boogered up and the Grille was hot glued in place so I've no doubt it's been tampered with.

I spent an enormous amount of time and effort cleaning up the Brass grille from this set, it was completely black in spots from tarnish and corrosion, I soaked in in every caustic chemical available to the common man but finally soaking it in Vinegar and wire brushing it finally made it presentable.

The rest of the cabinet is nothing to write home about either, I have two of these and was trying to determine which one was the best candidate for restoration, the second set is much better and hasn't been hacked up so it will get the treatment, I may use the grille from the Frankenstein since it's already cleaned up.


These pictures are of the cleaned grille and set #2. The Brass on set #2 is in light years better condition than the Brass shown here was.
How amazing is it anyway to have a heavy sheet of real Brass used as trim on a set, that will never happen today, your lucky if you get some fake plastic chrome today.

I dunno whether I'd rather have THAT one or the Loewy designed metal case version...Prolly the metal case, as I have its SX-62 SWL receiver "Brother".

I've seen several sets with Hallicrafters 506/T-54 chassis. Airline had one if I'm correct too. My guess is that the chassis were rebranded (not clones built by other factories), but the cabinets were built by the company whose name is on it.

Charles

It does not look Frankied to me!

It is just a late production set where the channel 1 shaft was trimmed off and an adjusted factory front panel was used, where someone did a poor job of cabinet restoration.

The nearest thing to "Frank" is the feet on your set seem to be a dull black. All never refinished original cabinets that I have seen had dull brown stain on the feet.

See thread

http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=256167

where a Hallicrafters and a Delco traveled down the same line one day apart (see picture on post #15.)

For the record, my Delco only has the Hallicrafters inspection stickers, and TV71 model number was not on the chassis, but was on the tube chart inside the cabinet.

Also in this thread you will see a link to Banderson's thread on restoration of a set like this.

James

I was afraid I'd cause some confusion with the above picture, that set is not the Frankie, it's a correctly marked Halli 506, the Frankenstein set has a Hallicrafters face and a Delco cabinet.
I was able to take some pictures today and have posted them below.
The Franki set is marked S-10-48 the Halli is marked S-11-48.

I'm not sure what the "S" means, perhaps September? and the 10 and 11 are the days followed by the year 1948? If that's correct then these cabinets were only one day apart also. I haven't looked at the chassis for dates in either one, I'm not even sure they are original to the cabinets.

The part number of the cabinet is the same 66P 460-* except for the suffix, a "B" on the Delco and an "I" on the hallicrafters.