Restoration Tips

Restoration

1-For cabinets repair and restoration Bruce Johnson's "The Weekend Refinisher" is an excellent reference.

2-For tubes, capacitors and other supplies, Antique Electronic Supply, Tempe, AZ telephone 480-820-5411, they have a catalog.

3-For tubes, capacitors, dials and other supplies, Radiodaze, Victor, New York, they have a catalog.

4-Woodworking supplies, I use two sources,

a-Refinisher's Warehouse, Charleston, SC telephone 800-636-8555, they have a catalog and offer an excellent selection of veneers, fillers, aniline dyes, and shading lacquers.

b-Constantine's I use this source for matched face veneers, popular cross banding and inlays.

5-Hank Brazeal is an excellent source for speaker repair, You may contact Hank via email.

6-Old Time Replications, Larry Bordonaro for escutcheons, knobs, 5744 Tobias Ave, Van Nuys, CA 91411, telephone 818-786-2500. Now has an excellent reproduction Philco bezel for the 1941 series. You can contact him through the net now at Lbordonaro@aol.com or at oldtimerep@aol.com or visit his website at Antique Radio Knobs.

7-DIAL REPRODUCTIONS
Mark Oppat's Old Radio Parts website or email

8-For Zenith information and parts, Great Northern Antiques, Alan Jesperson, 5159 Bloomington Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55417, telephone 612-727-2489, Fax 612-727-1908.

9-John at Antique Radio Grill Cloth Headquarters for excellent reproduction cloth.

10-Antique Radio Classified is a magazine published for the antique radio hobbyist.

11-Dave at PARTS2MANY@aol.com is an excellent source for original knobs, pushbuttons and other radio related items.

12-If a cabinet has to be re-finished, I find Kleen Strip KS-3 to be best stripper, it is a semi-paste. I apply it with a 2 inch brush working with a circular motion. Once the finish starts to lift I use a wide flexible putty knife to remove the stripper and the old finish. I swipe the putty knife across newspaper to remove/clean it. I then wet a porous polishing cloth with lacquer thinner and wash the remaining stripper and old finish from the cabinet. I find the paint stripper to work better at 70 degrees. In the winter time I will strip a cabinet in direct sunlight in the middle of the day; in the summer time I find a spot in the shade. For areas of the cabinet with allot of detail I use a toothbrush or a paintbrush with 2/3 of the bristle cut off and with the finish loose I dip the brush in lacquer thinner and liberally wash the detail. Once I have the cabinet clean I will replace missing veneer. If the cabinet requires gluing, I will do that before I strip it. Most often I use min-wax oil stain and go over the entire cabinet and then wipe clean. The oil stain seems to neutralize the chemicals. Provincial, Colonial Maple and Mahogany are my preferred stain colors. I sometimes will use an Aniline dye to get the proper color, but unlike the oil stain that stays on top of the wood, the dye will penetrate the wood. The next step is to wipe the cabinet clean with a tack cloth, after that I spray a spitz coat(6 parts denatured alcohol, 1 part orange shellac) over the cabinet, I let it dry. If I have replaced veneer with new at this point I use a filler. Some of the old veneer may require filler as well to close some of the pores in the wood. When applying filler I follow the directions on the can. After 24 hours I use 0000 steel wool and go over the cabinet. Clean again with a tack cloth and start applying the lacquer. Most radios at manufacture had shading lacquer over the entire cabinet. Their are times when I do this and other times when I tape the cabinet and detail it with shading lacquer then remove the safe release tape and go over the entire cabinet with 3-4 coats of satin clear lacquer. Before I apply the last coat of lacquer I will rub the cabinet again with 0000 steel wool and wipe clean with a tack cloth. I never spray lacquer on high humidity days. Another method I use for detailing the cabinet is to mix custom colors of flat latex paint to get the proper color for the detail. Lacquer does not re-act to the latex paint when applied. For the black paint around the grill cutouts I use a flat black model car paint stick. I found scratch sticks, in a variety of colors, at Sherwin-Williams recently, they are made by Miller. Again I found the lacquer likes this product.

Some time ago I purchased a High Volume Low Pressure(HVLP) sprayer system. I have found this to be the superb way to refinish cabinets. I use it for the base coat and also the top coat. I use lacquer sanding sealer and white dull rubbed lacquer that Sherwin-Williams stocks. The majority of the radios when manufactured were finished with lacquer that had color added. I use a Behlen product called Solar-Lux Walnut and/or Mahogany for adding color to the lacquer. I will also add a small amount of Behlen Retarder to slow down drying time and a product called Smoothie that increases flow out, reduces fish eye and add a little gloss to the finish. I added a 50 foot section of garden hose to the air supply line of the HVLP. The air coming out of the HVLP gets pretty warm which will quicken the drying time of the lacquer, adding the 50 foot section keeps the air supply at the spray nozzle at ambient temperature. There is so little overspray with and HELP system and the drying properties of lacquer I do not find it necessary to have a spray booth.

I have found that 0000 steel wool and GoJo hand cleaner is an excellent was to restore an original finish. The steel wool has just enough abrasive properties along with the steel wool to bring back allot of finishes.

I have purchased supplies and services from the above mentioned and find the individuals and the products to be excellent.

I also provide expert restoration services of both the chassis and the cabinet, see the "services offered" section of this web for examples of my work.