TRK12/120 Restoration

[dtvmcdonald]

For some very sleepy reason I originally posted this on antiqueradios.com.
I'm moving it to here, the right place.

I am still at the beginning of my project to make a TRK12
out of the parts I picked up at the 2015 ETF convention.

I have not even begun to work on the TRK-12 TV, whose two chassis
came in crates, looking "almost" new and virgin ... but not quite!
There are a couple of 1950s shiny 1/2 watt resistors in there.
We won't know how late it ever operated until it is turned on and
the oscillator frequencies are measured. I have all the necessary replacement
caps. This evening I measured a substantial fraction of the resistors
that can be measured The resistor markings are odd .. its mostly
body - end band - next to end band - other end band is silver 10%.
They are all high ... but less high in the 1k - 100K range than
higher or lower. Replacing most will be lots less cosmetic trouble
than expected ... I'll just repaint the closest physical size in modern
resistors. There are dogbone power ones. The Candohms will get
shamelessly replaced with modern resistors on terminal strips.
Well, I'll probably paint them if the paint
I got can take the heat.
Paper caps are ALL absolutely bad
but look nice and will be very easy to restuff. Almost all wire is cloth and OK.

The radio, an RC-427F one for a TRK 120, is in sad shape.
It got rained on. There was rust on the back which I thougtlessly
removed before a photo. Some coils are toast and will get modern replacements.
All paper caps are so fragile as to be unrestuffable. I have not decided whether to
make new fake shells (not easy!), or just use raw yellow axials. Half the wire
is cloth and probably OK, half is plastic and falling apart and will be replaced
(with cloth). The mechanical works are dirty but not rusted and all the turners turn.
It will get a brand new eye tube and mount (TRK120s had no eye tube).

The cabinet is not actually bad. It can be used as-is. A restorer is coming tomorrow to
look at it.

This is going to take a lot longer than last summer's CT-100.

Doug McDonald

[vts1134]

Today's word of the day is unrestuffable .

Good luck on the resurrection Doug. Keep us posted and post those photos, every one loves photos.

[Steve McVoy]

Doug, I have a bunch of old paper capacitors you can restuff. Let me know what values you need.

I also have thousands of NOS prewar resistors. If you made a trip down you could go through them and probably find everything you need.

[dtvmcdonald]

Here are photos of the TRK12/120 pieces, first set
of cabinet pictures. The last two are looking straight up,
camera sitting inside cabinet on bottom.

[dtvmcdonald]

Rest of cabinet photos

[dtvmcdonald]

First three are radio. other two are TV main chassis

[dtvmcdonald]

The photos of the TV power supply. The radio power supply
is missing almost all parts.

[dtvmcdonald]

This TV's radio has seen lots of work in the past. Last night I finally got all the push buttons to work. The problem ended up being a very odd one: the mounting for
the whole set had been bent and the latching mechanism was preventing some
contacts from contacting when pushed in.

Also I noticed something for the first time: the motor had been rewired with the wire put on by hand! Its clearly the later light colored Nylon wire and is all scrambled
up. Also all the connections to it had been hacked off and reattached in a very
nasty and unsafe manner. However, they did make it work right. For somebody with a pristine one, how long is it supposed to take to go from one end of the band to the other? Its slow but acceptable.

[dtvmcdonald]

The cabinet is back from the restorer. He did, in my opinion, a very fine job.
He did, however, punt on decal placement, making me do it with his help.
It came out great. However, there were only channel numbers 1-5 so
that's all we used. I hope they are in the right places, the gap is at
far right.

Also ... are the hinges supposed to have a detent for the correct
angle? They sure don't seem to, though they stay put perfectly well.

Pictures eventually.

[tubesrule]

Sounds like you placed the channel numbers correctly.

There is no detent. The lid is designed to stay put at any position.

[dtvmcdonald]

The restored cabinet.


http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1434331611


http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1434331611

[decojoe67]

Originally Posted by dtvmcdonald

The restored cabinet.


http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1434331611


http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1434331611

Very nicely done. It has a smooth semi-gloss finish that looks very original. It's so fortunate that John Vassos was chosen to design these cabinets. They have a very clean machine-age deco design.

[dtvmcdonald]

I just looked again at the pictures of my cabinet. The front-on
one is absolutely bizarre, I didn't notice! The left and right hand sides
are not symmetric in shade. But .. they most certainly are
quite symmetric in person. I've never before seen my camera
do something like this.

[decojoe67]

Originally Posted by dtvmcdonald

I just looked again at the pictures of my cabinet. The front-on
one is absolutely bizarre, I didn't notice! The left and right hand sides
are not symmetric in shade. But .. they most certainly are
quite symmetric in person. I've never before seen my camera
do something like this.

The flash of a camera can often bring-out things that cannot be seen under normal lighting. Sometimes it can really compliment a cabinet, other times it's unflattering to it.

[Eric H]

That is some really nice cabinet work!

I've notice Veneer tends to reflect light unevenly, probably because of the bands of grain, that's what makes it so attractive though.