Welcome to W J O E RADIO, Taking radio from the past into the new Millennium!
General Electric: A large tombstone from 1933 Unknown Model: A nice wood table set
Philco 20B: A Cathedral from 1930
Philco 57c: A Philco model from 1933
Plymold-Mectron MR-2: A Great looking table radio!!
02/12/2k
I have had this one for about 5 years now. She has been waiting for me patiently! I picked this up somewhere. I took it only because it was complete, an excellent start. especially when it has all that ornate designs intact. None of it is missing, take a look at the speaker grille!! WOW! The only thing really damaged is the top, as you can see. It has 4 or 5 chips in the veneer. Other than that she just needs to be refinished. I do have the chassis, and speaker. I repaired the chassis 4 years ago. I tried it out and except for a bit of distortion it sounded fine. I will go over it again. For now check out my Philco 57c I just finished below. Thanks to the person that e-mailed me about the model number. Until now this Philco was "unknown".
02/14/2k
I worked all weekend on this one. I got all the veneer repaired, and a small chunk of wood was missing on the middle front corner. NOT ANY MORE! I sanded and shaped all the repairs as well. I will probably start to strip it during the week, and update! For now I do have an action shot while it was being clamped and glued. ENJOY!
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02/22/2k
Take a look below! I finished the initial stripping and the top looks pretty good too. I will do a final stripping with #0000 steel wool and liquid stripper. I have to tell you though, this radio has a lot of scroll work on the legs and lots of details to clean up. My arm and my hand hurt from the work, so it may be a few days till I finish. Check out the pictures below.
03/03/2k
Well, well, well. I tried something new. I tried using that Minwax product called "Polyshades". What a mistake! Don't use that crap unless you have to. It is very difficult to spread evenly. It leaves dark areas, dries to fast so you can't stop for more than a few minutes in one spot. If you do it will paint over itself and leave a darker area where the paint overlapped. Anyway to late for me! It looks a bit fake as well, I guess it is. With a lot of touch up and some sanding I was able to make it come out pretty nice. I put a heavy coat of clear finish (satin) over it. Then I sanded it down with a 0000 piece of steel wool. Did a bit more touch up and sanding, then another coat! That's it for now , she has been sitting for a week, I need to let all the paint dry good and hard before I apply a final coat. I should be able to do that this weekend. Check the picture below! Taken just before the final coat!
03/06/2k
O.K after at least five years, she is done. Below is a picture NOW, next to a before picture! Let me know what you think.
BEFORE--AFTER
8/23/99
First of all I don't know the model number for this. I do have another one identical and it doesn't have a model number either. This one isn't to bad. The top of the radio looks to be in three pieces. Also right in the middle there is a small piece of wood missing. I do have the original knobs and dial plate. Also the chassis works! The cord was replaced by someone else and the chassis needs nothing, except a speaker. The speaker as well as the grill cloth was destroyed.
8/24/99
I had a lot of spare time the last couple days, so I reconned the speaker. As luck would have it, I had an identical speaker with a bad field coil and a good cone. Well now I have a one with a good field coil, and a good cone. Now it plays well and sounds good.
11/22/99
I haven't done to much in the last couple months. I have been busy with the Philco 20 as well as other things in life. Check back and I will update.
12/23/99
I still haven't done to much, but took some time off during the holidays. I did start to pull it apart, because of the top piece. It is in two sections and need to be glued. The only way to do this is to take it apart first and start over.
01/22/2k
Well, well, well. You will never guess what happened when I tried to take the top apart! Yes it broke into five pieces. With a couple tiny pieces as well. Needless to say I had to glue and set each peirce one at a time every 24 hours. Using glue and wood dust i was able to cover the cracks pretty good. I next had to replace the chunk of wood missing. I took a piece from the bottom of cover from the inside. This way you can't tell unless your inside the set. I groved the top, then shaped and glued in the new piece. A bit of sanding, and shaving molded it into place very well. You could never tell it was done. The wood used for the repair matched perfect because it was from the same piece.
01/26/2k
I finished up the cover piece and reconstructed the cabinet. It didn't quite fit, so I improvise! An expert may be able to see what I done. However it doesn't make a physical difference in the appearance. Now comes the stripping of the finish. Not to bad though. This does have lots of hard to reach places and little detailed areas to get into.
02/11/2k
I finished the project. I put on many coats of a spray on lacquer finish. I do have to say, out of all the cracks and missing pieces, it came out OK! One part of one crack did come back. The top ended up being in six pieces, and some of those had tiny pieces missing/broken as well. I didn't have the grille cloth I wanted to use. I will replace it some time soon with a more appropriate piece in the future. I will include a picture in my next update! And I will add pictures for my next project. It will be a tombstone type on legs. I don't know what to call it. It looks like a small console with long legs. You tell me, I will post pictures with the next update.
02/12/2k
Well I got the picture. She is finished!!! I would like to thank the person that sent me e-mail identifying this radio. I don't remember who you are. SORRY! If you want me to credit you then e-mail me again. Until now this radio has been listed as unknown. It is a model 57c, made in 1933.
This is a G.E f-81 Tombstone Radio. It is missing five tubes, and has lots of veneer damage. Most of the damage is on the top. That I think I will replace. There is a scratch that went through the side. That will need a bit of attention! Also lots of other abrasions, and the bottom seems to be coming off.
WOW! What a mess. Do you think $45.00 "AMERICAN" was to much to pay for this one?
NOW FOR THE GOOD POINTS
All the knobs are present and good, the faceplate and dial plate are good.Nothing other than tubes, are missing. And the chassis is complete.
I have recently purchased the missing tubes. Some new some used at the NEARC radio show in Nashua N.H.
UPDATE 11/03/98
I took apart the radio, removing the chassis. I installed the new tubes and a new cord then slowly powered it up. Everything lit up, no smoke or noises. I noticed a nest when I first pulled the unit apart , but I didn't notice the coil that was chewed up. Lucky thing this was a coil with hundreds of windings and only a couple windings were chewed. This made it easier to repair the coil. I repaired the coil and still nothing! I then checked the caps and resistors. I ended up replacing three caps and two resistors, but still nothing! Now time for the signal tracer. After about an hour I found a bad tube, this is a preamp tube it has good audio going in and nothing coming out. I don't have one so I will order it and update again.
11/11/98
I got the tube I needed and it worked! But not so great. The sensitivity was very low and the sound was a bit distorted. After replacing a few more resistors and caps the reception and sound got better. I have also been working on the case. I repaired the hole in one side, and as I write,, the veneer that was coming away from the wood is setting. The radio looks like a robot with all those clamps. I had to cut a piece out because someone had tried to glue it once before but didn't clamp or anything. So I had to get the old glue out before I reglued or that part would have stuck up above the rest of the veneer.
11/23/98
The cabinet has been stripped and sanded, then sanded again, then some sanding. You get the message. You might say lots of sanding was required. I now had some more veneer repairs, small pieces and some loose. Now time for some sanding.
11/30/98
I gave it a sealer coat from a spray can then lightly sanded it and sprayed another coat. I then used a #0000 piece of steel wool on it, cleaned up all the loose paint dust. It was now ready for the finish coats. I used a semi clear polyurethane spray pain. I sprayed three coats, with a light sanding, buffing, and cleaning with steel wool between coats.
12/05/98
All and all not bad. I like natural wood so the only thing I didn't do was the darker panels. I left them natural and stained it all with the same color. The chassis went in without a hitch and both dial lights were replaced as well as the grill cloth. The original looked good until I tried to take it off, you get the point! I may try a different style of grill cloth, but other than that she looks good.
Completed
Not bad!! I like to leave the natural wood, so I tend to use a light stain and keep the wood look. I also never refinish brass pieces I like them natural as well.
A bit rough, but repairable. I started to take it apart before I could get a picture. What you see is two of them. I bought them both from the same person. The lighter one is for scrap only. I wanted the veneer to repair the other one with. I figure it's the same veneer from the same period and should match up great. I don't however have the knobs. Do you? I do have the brass plate for the dial, and two chassis. One is rusted and the speaker is missing. As well as some of the tubes. The other chassis is clean and complete. A couple good things though, the tube shield is there, and all but two #74 tubes are the balloon type, and look nice in a 1930 set. Also the original grill cloth is good.
08/21/99
I repaired the chassis, and as you can see the speaker. I did an initial inspection and found everything was in place and looked good. The original cord is good also. The speaker was coming apart at the seam, but the cone was perfect. At first power up it did nothing. With further probing I found the B+ voltage was very low for a set this old. It was about 170 volts. I found a shorted cap was bringing down the voltage. I then started to get a low broken up signal. A couple more caps were replaced. Now I had some volume and good selectivity, but I could only move the volume about half way before I got loud annoying sounds. I then found an open 500K resistor. Now all is GOOD. A bit of cleaning and I will be done with the insides!
09/02/99
As you could see, I started to repair the case. So far just glue and water. The grill work is pretty damaged. Mostly separating between the wood layers. When all the layers are glued then I will need to re-glue the whole case. It is separating every where. Then I will need to work on the veneer. This will be a slow process, because it will be glued in segments and need to dry 24 hours between.
09/19/99
All the veneer work is done. Now I need to do some shaping, sanding, and filling. I will update with a picture when all this is done. I now have a solid one piece of grille and veneer. My next project will glue the cabinet again as a whole. I did find some loose layers in the grille work as I was working on it. So a bit more gluing, clamping, and shaping is needed.
09/23/99
With the kind of damage this thing had I'm surprised it came out this good. As you could see by all the clamps I started gluing the case. The next steps will be stripping and refinishing. By the way I still need knobs. If you have them please contact me.
11/16/99
It's been a while, but I started the refinishing process. I didn't like how one of the veneer pieces looked. I used many coats of stain to try and hide the color differences. For the most part it looks OK. I found some more loose layers of wood. I spent the weekend sanding, filling, filing, and painting the grillwork. After that was repaired I painted the inside edges black. I then put the first heavy coat of clear varnish. I will next have to sand it with a 120 grit sandpaper and put on another coat, but with a thinner varnish. That's it for now I will update again.
11/22/99
Hello, again. I put a heavy coat of varnish on and let it dry. I sanded it with a 120 grit sandpaper. I next mixed up a thinner varnish and painted on another coat. I found a couple small blemishes and fixed them by blending in paint and stains. I sanded the second coat again to level off the finish. With all the rebuilding I had to do, it isn't quite level enough. Tonight I will put on another heavy coat. I will sand it with a sanding block to get it as smooth and as straight as possible. The problem is only with the face of the radio.
12/15/99
I finally finished the set. I used 6 coats of varnish with sanding to get a deep rich look. All and all I give it an 7-8 on a scale of 10. Check photo below and you tell me. It works great, looks and feels great while playing. (if you know what I mean). A nice set to have. ENJOY!
Well this time I have three new projects! It has been a while, but I bought three radios in the last couple weeks. Between Flea Markets, and the NEARC Radio Show, I couldn't help myself.
05/16/00
Well here is a radio I never heard of! "Plymold-Mectron". Please let me know what this is. It is made of wood, has two beautiful pillar like ends. It is missing both knobs, and one tube. I don't know the model number, so I will have to try and figure out what tube it needs. As you can see I already removed the chassis, and it needs to be refinished. You can't tell by the picture but, it has great veneer under all that aged finish! This will make one hell of a radio when done.
01/01/01
It's been a while for this one, but I did strip out the chassis, face plate, and grille. It all came apart relatively easy. I have had a lot of time and days off with all these holidays. Although I didn't find a schematic for this one, I was able to repair it. With a bit of math and a reference book, I was able to figure out what the missing tube was. The math told me what the voltage for the filament should be. "50" was the magic number. Looking up the other tubes told me what they did electronically. The reasonable deduction of course was to figure out what was missing. That turned out to be the diode used in the main power supply. A 50A5 Tube. After inserting the tube I got a very loud hum! Wonder what that can be? YES, the filter caps were bad. Although only one was bad, I replaced all three. Works great now! I also replaced the bulbs for the dial lights.
01/03/01
I stripped the case, only to find out the pillars were not veneer as they looked. They were painted on. I don't know what they used on this one for Varnish, but it did not want to come off. It took a couple days to get it stripped and ready for the next step. I will have to leave the pillars as they are. At least they are solid wood, and look good as they are. I also had to replace the grille cloth as well, as you can see.
01/06/01
Well, after some sanding and finishing work it was ready for stain. As well as new coat of Varnish. Looks pretty good now. Well a lot better anyway! Although simple it has a very nice deco look to it, as well as a good sounding set. Check out the picture below!
01/09/01
I received an e-mail with information about this set from a person that saw my web site, Curt. It is a Plymold-Mectron, not Mectrox as I thought. It certainly looks like an "x", but with a careful inspection it is an "N". As Curt put it, "it is easy to misinterpret". Curt also told me the Model number is MR-2. He also told me that the cabinet was made by Plymold, and the chassis was made by Mectron. Well, I got one thing to say about all this! THANKS for the Info Curt!!!!!
05/16/00
Another great set I couldn't ignore. I don't know the model name or number. Please help me and e-mail if you know anything about this set! It looks like an early 30's. The set has no permanent damage. It needs to be refinished, and it needs a knob. DO YOU HAVE ONE?
06/21/00
I took it apart and found it to be complete! And it works, I had to replace the line cord though. I also found a hole burnt into the dial . I filled and repaired the hole as best as I can. It didn't come out to good, I didn't think it would anyway. I used a piece of clear plastic glued to the back. I filled the hole with paint I had to mix for the proper color. It did the job, but it looks OK! I'm going to go with it anyway.
12/21/00
SORRY for the big delay, personal life, a couple deaths in the family a new job and more, more, more put me behind a bit! With all this put aside, I have been working on this set. I got it completely stripped sanded, and all the loose parts have been glued. Take a look below.
I will have paint the inside parts of the dial face and the footing of this radio black, as it was before. (See the first picture). Also I have to repair one small piece of missing veneer on the side of this set, as you can see below. You can also see I found a piece that is almost an exact match. As you see it I scraped some of the finish from the new piece to make sure the match was good. Once the piece is glued and dry, I will trim it, then sand the area. This will make look as if it was always there. WELL VERY CLOSE ANYWAY!
01/19/01
Well!!! The case is GREAT! The one big flaw with this is the dial scale. Someone put the wrong bulb in it and burnt a hole through the plastic. I tried to repair it, however it didn't come out to good. And the plastic face plate is a bit foggy. I didn't know how to take care of that problem. DO YOU? Please let me know. The veneer repair is the best I have ever seen or done. Like I said the case came out excellent. I am also still missing the knob. Please take a look at the picture below and LET ME KNOW if you have one. Anyway, as you can see I finished up the radio, and the knobs. I put on a few coats of varnish, and she looks very good. Not much more I can do. I hope to find another junker set just like it. Check out the pictures below and let me know!!!! Thanks!
12/03/04