Predicta Pedestal Restoration begins.

[cbenham]

Originally Posted by Dave A

I've used liquid electrical tape for speaker repairs. Dries quickly and stays flexible. Comes in a screw-top tin with a brush attached to the top.

You are ingenious! What a great idea that is.
I just rushed back from the hardware store with some and patched the cones of two speakers with it. They now sound like new with no buzzes or rattles like before.

Thanks!
P.S. They were spare Philco speakers for the set in my avatar.
Cliff

[Steve]

Just completed the electrical restoration of a 21" pedestal. The front
CRT plastic is very stinky and badly cracked. Probably why I got
it so cheap. It is the original plastic and the logo is at the top.

If anyone has a 21" plastic that is usable, I'm looking for one.
Steve

[Eric H]

I've got the cabinet stripped and ready to refinish, the big hold up is finding some paint the right color to redo the top and front with.

Any suggestions are welcome!!

I actually had this thing nearly done, the mahogany was done and I wanted to get the painting done, that's where things went terribly wrong.

First of all I got the paint mixed at Home Depot, it's an Acrylic Enamel for cabinets and trim, it came out a little too dark but that's OK, I mixed in a bottle of Acrylic White to lighten it up.

I tried to apply it with a roller but of course this came out looking like an orange peel. Stripping that junk back off was not easy so I wound up just stripping everything back off and starting over.

It was a little too dark anyhow, I always get carried away with the toner.

I have a can of Spray Enamel in Sand color, it's a close match to the tube cover and I had almost considered using for that if I couldn't get a satisfactory polish on the cover.

Anyway I thought this might be an acceptable substitute for the light yellow it originally was, either that or I will try mixing some Yellowish toner with the dyes I bought for the Blond Philco 48-2500, I think I could spray it white and use the toner to make it the right shade, toner is a real pain to get applied evenly though and I keep going over it until it's too dark.

The other problem will be repainting the "Philco" logo across the front, decals are sold but they aren't exact and they are water slide decals, the original looked like a stencil. Well, that can be done later I guess.


One blurry photo, the dark spots are where the heat gun burned it while trying to remove that stupid Acrylic paint, before giving up and spraying it with Stripper.

The lighter stuff in the grille and elsewhere is sanding dust, I'll blow it off when I take it to work.

[Eric H]

Finally, I've reached the point where I can live with the refinish job.

After screwing up and having to strip it down three times I managed to get a halfway decent looking finish on this thing.

Even on this third try I nearly blew it in the ninth inning.

I masked off the Yellow so I could spray the toner on the rest of the cabinet, when I removed the masking tape I found that it had etched itself into the paint! At this point I was about ready to take an ax to it but I calmed down and used a Jitterbug sander instead.

I was able to wet sand the blemishes out of the yellow (actually Rustoleum Navajo White) paint and follow it up with some 0000 Steel Wool, it came out looking great except for a couple very small spots where I sanded through to the wood, I'll touch those up with a brush.

The Toner is also a bit too reddish and too light, don't care at this point.
It'll look real fine in my dimly lit living room.

The only thing I'm 100% happy with is the back, that's because I didn't have to do much to that.
I cleaned off a couple hundred tiny white paint specks and a little bit of black gunk that looked like tar, polished the whole thing with 0000 Steel Wool and sprayed on one thin coat of Satin Lacquer, it looks perfect!

[zenithfan1]

Looks great Eric! Nice job!

[Eric H]

Well you're never really done with a Predicta, or so I've heard, but I'm calling this one done for now.

I spent the afternoon putting this one back together, it's a pain to get the tube safety screen installed correctly and then getting the gold band around it.
I finally figured out it was easier to hook the gold band to the spring and then stretch it around the tube cover, carefully prying it over the alignment tabs and working my way around.

After everything was back in place I plugged it in and was greeted by a picture with no Sync at all.
Since I had been banging around on it I figured it was just a tube loose or something, sure enough, jiggled the sync tube and it worked fine again, however the tube socket seems a little touchy, sprayed it out again but it's still a little touchy but I'm not about to pull the chassis again and check it right now.

The Vertical is also a little too tall because I didn't replace that bad height pot, that can be done easily at a later date.

I was able to use one of my brand new cheater cords on this one, the cord had been replaced before but they left the rivets in place so I stretched the new cord over them so it looks like it's supposed to!

Here's a couple pictures, one with the flash on one with it off, the one with the greenish picture actually represents what the screen looks like more than the bluish one, the screen cover is very Green, almost as green as a Hoffman, not sure if it's discolored over the years or if it's supposed to be that way?

[ha1156w]

That looks beautiful! Great job! Your restoration is giving me the drive to start on my own Predicta.

I have this same model waiting for a full restoration, but I'm in need of a speaker grille and a rear curved panel. Mine was missing 3/4 of the former, all of the latter. Anybody have spare cabinet parts for a barberpole?