found a 1960s Philco Portable TV today at the Antique Mall!

[zeno]

First please dont toss bombs back & forth. This is
just e-mail so we dont know much about motivations
without the face to face input. Tom has much to
add & you are motivated & informed. Nuf sed.

Anyhows the set is a great find. Never seen one, most
Philcos this vintage were hot sets & kinda cheap.
Even though I am sure you have seen it the dag is
peeling off the CRT & when it gets on the chassis will short things out.
So a good D&C is in order. Good luck with her.

73 Zeno

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by zeno

First please dont toss bombs back & forth. This is
just e-mail so we dont know much about motivations
without the face to face input. Tom has much to
add & you are motivated & informed. Nuf sed.

Anyhows the set is a great find. Never seen one, most
Philcos this vintage were hot sets & kinda cheap.
Even though I am sure you have seen it the dag is
peeling off the CRT & when it gets on the chassis will short things out.
So a good D&C is in order. Good luck with her.

73 Zeno

what's D&C? Also I did see that some of the black coating on the back of the CRT was coming off some of it was hanging down into the chassis but not enough to touch anything to short it, the only thing it was touching was the top of one of the vacuum tubes in the unit, so I peeled off the hanging piece of the black coating so it wasn't hanging down anymore.
By the way what is the purpose of that black paint stuff on the back of the picture tube? Is it supposed to be some sort of x-ray protection, and would it hurt the picture tube to leave it as is right now and run it with that black stuff peeling off as long as it doesn't come completely off?

[Electronic M]

That stuff is called aquadag (conductive silver paint), and it's purpose is to filter the HV. The outer coating is grounded (or should be) and the inner coating (inside the CRT glass walls) is connected to the HV....Together with the glass between them they form a capacitor that filters the HV. If that coating is not or poorly grounded many strange symptoms can result, including (in the worst case) CRT implosion (a member reported having a bad arcing ground connection that caused implosion after a few minutes of arcing).
If patches of the grounded side are disconnected from the rest arcing may occur. If the grounded side is disconnected it may float up to HV potential and shock you while servicing the rest of the set.

It likes to break into small bits once it de-laminates so it would be a good idea to clean all the bits and any on the tube that are loose...Unless you are fine with the risk of it shorting and burning up one of the more delicate not necessarily easy or cheap to replace coils (IF, h osc, traps, etc.).....

[fixmeplease]

Thats a very nice explanation of that coating as i was asking about it in my post too.

Nice looking philco!

[zeno]

D&C is dusting & cleaning. Also refers to a medical
procedure for women.
If much dag is missing you can replace it but I
dont remember what its called. Be sure to follow the
old pattern.

73 Zeno

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Captainclock

I thought about that but sadly enough I pretty much had every single tube that this TV needed in my tube stash except the 6FD7 or its subs...

Do you have a sub guide?
Many times the subs listed are only close tube designs and will, only once in a while, cause a new problem. IE: the vertical hold will be critical or the lin or height won't adjust properly. The 6FD7 and the 13DF7 is a Philco designed tube.

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

Do you have a sub guide?
Many times the subs listed are only close tube designs and will, only once in a while, cause a new problem. IE: the vertical hold will be critical or the lin or height won't adjust properly. The 6FD7 and the 13DF7 is a Philco designed tube.

I do have a tube substitution guide and I saw what subs were listed for this tube and I didn't have those tubes in my collection so I just went ahead and ordered a new one over at AES it was only a $3 so it wasn't a big deal.

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

That stuff is called aquadag (conductive silver paint), and it's purpose is to filter the HV. The outer coating is grounded (or should be) and the inner coating (inside the CRT glass walls) is connected to the HV....Together with the glass between them they form a capacitor that filters the HV. If that coating is not or poorly grounded many strange symptoms can result, including (in the worst case) CRT implosion (a member reported having a bad arcing ground connection that caused implosion after a few minutes of arcing).
If patches of the grounded side are disconnected from the rest arcing may occur. If the grounded side is disconnected it may float up to HV potential and shock you while servicing the rest of the set.

It likes to break into small bits once it de-laminates so it would be a good idea to clean all the bits and any on the tube that are loose...Unless you are fine with the risk of it shorting and burning up one of the more delicate not necessarily easy or cheap to replace coils (IF, h osc, traps, etc.).....

Most of the coating is still intact yet just a little flaky but its still attached the bottom of the tube is where it was coming off the worse which I just peeled it off (it was hanging down into the circuit board area sitting on top of one of the tubes.) So how hard would it be to recoat the back of this picture tube or can I just let it be for right now as long as its not missing too many huge chunks of it? Like I said its mostly still attached to the tube yet its juts slightly flaky on the top side of the tube, and a small chunk missing on the bottom side of the tube and its mostly on the part towards the neck where the stuff is flaking off so I think its still grounded yet.

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by zeno

D&C is dusting & cleaning. Also refers to a medical
procedure for women.
If much dag is missing you can replace it but I
dont remember what its called. Be sure to follow the
old pattern.

73 Zeno

OK thanks for the explanation, I wasn't sure what you meant by that but now I do.

So as long as there isn't any huge chunks of that coating missing would it be fine to run it as is? Its still mostly intact yet just a little flaky on the top and a small chunk missing on the bottom side.
So would it be very hard to recoat the picture tube?, and if there's still sections of it that are intact yet would I just leave that alone and just redo the areas that the coating failed in?

[old_coot88]

If any part of the 'dag is ungrounded or poorly grounded, or if any part lacks electrical continuity with any other part (is 'floating'), there is liklihood of arcing.
Arcing 'dag can case really weird effects mimicking AGC and sync problems.

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by old_coot88

If any part of the 'dag is ungrounded or poorly grounded, or if any part lacks electrical continuity with any other part (is 'floating'), there is liklihood of arcing.
Arcing 'dag can case really weird effects mimicking AGC and sync problems.

OK, well another question I had about redoing the coating on the back of the picture tube, what does one do with the old paper labels on the picture tube when one does do something with recoating it? would you just peel the labels off and then reglue them back on again once the new coating has had a chance to dry? Also could one just recoat the areas where the coating was damaged and leave the coating that is still intact alone?

[Captainclock]

Just did a google search on this TV and apparently it must be a fairly scarce model because I couldn't find anything about it anywhere on the internet. Its model number is UL 3804 and its called the Philco "Townhouse" (at least that's what it says on the front of the TV) I searched under the model number and its name and nothing shows up on the internet about it anywhere, I wonder if this is the only one left of this TV?!

[zeno]

The dag looks pretty rough so I would at least get
all the loose stuff off & coat that. You do have to be sure
that you have a single U shaped pattern. I cant see the
ground, it may be a spring or fingers on the chassis
that touch the dag. So find it & be sure it will contact
the dag.You can probably work around the tags.

It is a rare set, probably $20-$30 more than a series
set, a LOT back then. $20 could get you 3 tanks of gas
( 60 gal ) & a carton of smokes. Now some places you cant
get 2 packs for $20 ! So not many sets sold.

73 Zeno

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Captainclock

Just did a google search on this TV and apparently it must be a fairly scarce model because I couldn't find anything about it anywhere on the internet. Its model number is UL 3804 and its called the Philco "Townhouse" (at least that's what it says on the front of the TV) I searched under the model number and its name and nothing shows up on the internet about it anywhere, I wonder if this is the only one left of this TV?!

I only saw one in my time. The neighbor, across the street had one. It replaced a 1952 Philco metal table model. They seemed to like Philco products, as they had a Philco portable stereo, as well.
The stereo was nothing special. It had the cheap VM changer, that was rigidly mounted.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by zeno

The dag looks pretty rough so I would at least get
all the loose stuff off & coat that. You do have to be sure
that you have a single U shaped pattern. I cant see the
ground, it may be a spring or fingers on the chassis
that touch the dag. So find it & be sure it will contact
the dag.You can probably work around the tags.

It is a rare set, probably $20-$30 more than a series
set, a LOT back then. $20 could get you 3 tanks of gas
( 60 gal ) & a carton of smokes. Now some places you cant
get 2 packs for $20 ! So not many sets sold.

73 Zeno

It must be poor storage conditions. I only had two sets that had peeling dag, in over 50 years of doing this.
Living in Wisconsin, all my life, most people had basements or attics, where they stored these items. Also, if no longer used, they sold or gave away the sets. Very seldom, they were stored in sheds or barns.
I'm rather spoiled, so I'm not too eager to restore sets, that have rust or excessive cabinet damage.
The Philco, Townhouse, I would make an exception on.