1947 Wilcox-Gay "Recordio" Model 6B30 Acquired Yesterday!

[vortalexfan]

Hello Everyone, Yesterday I went to a local second hand store and picked up a 1947 Wilcox-Gay "Recordio" Model 6B30 Radio/Record Player/Recorder/PA System unit for $50 and the unit was in pretty decent shape for what it was.

The only issues I have found with this unit so far is that when I went to remove the chassis from the cabinet to check it out, I saw that there was the remanents of an old mouse nest inside the radio, and the mouse chewed through the speaker cone on the radio which thankfully the speaker cone is salvageable and can be easily repaired using coffee filter paper and diluted Elmer's Glue, as the holes that were chewed into the speaker cone aren't very big and are in a spot that can be easily repaired and not affect the audio of the radio.

Another issue I have found is that the tuning condenser is really hard to rotate because it appears that the mouse that lived in this radio may have urinated on it a couple of times and it caused the tuning capacitor to corrode slightly at the bearings.

I looked under the chassis to see the condition of the wiring and components underneath and the chassis is all original underneath and was never touched (at least from what I can see, if it was repaired the repair person did a really good job at replacing the components to make them look factory installed, rather than cobbled together.)

I unfortunately don't have the original microphone that came with this unit, and I'm not sure where I can find one.

one thing that surprised me, is that the plastic (Tenite?) bezel on the tuning dial and push-buttons still looks like brand new yet.

Pictures coming soon.

[Electronic M]

I've got one. These used Crystal cutting cartridges and pickup cartridges that both go bad.

It's easier to find a different record cutter machine with a magnetic cutter cartridge (discdiscernable by measuring 8 ohms at the cart terminals) and restore it than deal with the crystal cutter cart in this model.
Besides that these are decent radios.

[vortalexfan]

I figured the cartridges were probably of the crystal variety, I wonder if the playback tone-arm could at least be retro-fitted with a modern ceramic cartridge, to make that at least functional again? I really don't care if the recording part works or not because it would just be more for show and tell purposes (mostly tell) because I doubt one could find a magnetic cutting head/cartridge that would work with a tone-arm as big and heavy as this thing is. Anyways The radio part definitely looks high quality and definitely looks like it would be a good Night time DX'er. It also has a Tuning Eye Tube for the radio which is nice. One thing I'm wondering about is how hard would it be to find an original microphone for this unit, so I can have it for looks?

[Electronic M]

You csn install a more modern 1/2" ceramic cartridge for playback.

Magnetic cutting arms were about as heavy. You needed the rigidity to cut properly. If you notice there's an extra off-center peg on the turntable? That is designed to go through a hole in the recording blank to prevent the blank from moving relative to the turntable platter from the drag of the cutting head.

Don't know about microphones. That's its own collecting genre.

[old_coot88]

Where would anyone find blanks these days?

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by old_coot88

Where would anyone find blanks these days?

Unused originals, or LD videodiscs with laser rot. IIRC one of the only places making blanks was destroyed in the California wildfire and now there's a shortage for mastering new LPs with.

Could also make your own out of stamped aluminum and lacquer. I've got a small stash if I need it.

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Unused originals, or LD videodiscs with laser rot. IIRC one of the only places making blanks was destroyed in the California wildfire and now there's a shortage for mastering new LPs with.

Could also make your own out of stamped aluminum and lacquer. I've got a small stash if I need it.

I used to have several of these discs at one time, that I got from my old pastor of the church I went to when I was growing up, and I didn't know what they were at the time I just knew they were records of some sort and I couldn't get them to play properly on my record player I had which also happened to come from the same pastor that the records came from, so I threw those records in the trash.