Sharp TS-103 14" Japanese market TV restoration

[cj_reha]

Hey all, been a while but life is ever so busy and my new job (bench tech at a computer museum) has kept me occupied with plenty of restoration projects outside of the scope of this site

For the past year or so I've been importing a small selection of interesting TVs from Japan and slowly restoring them to working order. There is very little information online about Japanese TV history (in English, anyway) and so I'm very interested in what their sets were built like, the differences in circuit design, and in general some of the more oddball features that we never got. So I thought I'd start with something simple - a 1950s black and white set:



From what I can gather, these 14" TVs were basically Japan's version of the ubiquitous 21" black and white sets that still litter Facebook Marketplace for pocket change here in the states. I only paid around $50 (excluding shipping, of course) and found nearly a dozen other sets from different manufacturers that were basically the same thing excluding differences in styling. I'm assuming the size discrepancy is due to how relatively small Japanese living spaces can be - space is probably a lot more sacred. It's technically a tabletop set, but actually has threaded holes in the bottom so that legs can be screwed in! I didn't get any, sadly, though I suppose they could be made fairly inexpensively...

Anyway, when the box first got here, I was assuming it was going to be a writeoff. It was delivered in the rain, so it was waterlogged, and had clearly been stacked under a ton of weight as the entire top and sides of the box were wrecked:



But yet, when unpacking, things didn't look so bad:



It actually survived! The only "damage" was the service cover getting slightly bashed in and warped, but that is very easily straightened out. You know, maybe buying a lottery ticket ain't such a bad idea after all...

The back is in perfect condition, and the original thumbscrews are still present, so I do not think it has been serviced much if at all. Note the little baggie with replacement fuses still tacked to the top right corner:



Both live and neutral are fused. I've never actually seen this in an American set, it's usually just live if even at all. The third fuse holder is a voltage tap to switch between 100V and 110V, which is another confusingly common feature considering I have found nothing showing these sets were ever sold in the US. I'm not quite sure why the extra expense was considered (perhaps they were sold in other 110 volt countries?) but it certainly makes my life better:



Taking off the cover reveals the point to point underside:



Despite the extra fusing it is still just a plain old hot chassis set, neutral straight to chassis. For safety (relative in this instance I suppose ) plastic insulators keep the chassis & mounting bolts from contacting the metal cabinet.

Interestingly all of the paper caps are Sharp branded, and the electrolytics are early Nippon Chemi-Cons. They're certainly the oldest I've ever seen. In the interests of keeping the set as original as possible I am going to try to keep the lytics in the set. It is certainly not going to be a daily driver for me and the less parts I need to change the better:



The flyback has a translucent plastic (?) insulating cover, which I think is really neat:



But enough ogling! I'd love to see the set display a picture and so restoration begins. The seller plugged it in and only got a horizontal line on the screen, so I figured if there was any damage that would happen through a powerup, it was already done and tested it myself. Indeed there is no vertical but I DO get static through the speaker, so I think basically everything aside from the vertical circuit is working and it should come back to life with a simple recap job. I get this Friday off so I think I know what I'm doing!