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Vintage Radio (domestic) Domestic vintage radio (wireless) receivers only. |
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13th May 2021, 4:05 pm | #21 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Cornwall, UK.
Posts: 13,454
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Re: Wartime Civilian Receiver.
During WW2 timber was in short supply, they raided lots of estates and timber plantations that were planted just after WW1 by the Forestry Commission and lots of timber was thinned early or felled before it's normal rotation period.
Boxwood was used for rulers and T squares amongst other things. Lawrence. |
17th May 2021, 2:11 pm | #22 |
Hexode
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK.
Posts: 421
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Re: Wartime Civilian Receiver.
Well the case turned out quite well, three coats of Danish oil & then beeswax brought it up. The speaker cloth (original) survived & equally came out ok. a fair few of the old rubber covered wires were crumbling a had to be replaced, the cotton covering was rotten too. I attempted to make something that looked approximately right by using 16/0.2 PTFE wire covered with coloured nylon mesh tubing. It's not perfect but it looks the part. I replaced the original mains switch as on a Megger it wasn't what I would consider safe, less than 10M from the contacts to the metalwork at 500VDC. Luckily I had some new ones which look about the same. A panel mounted fuse holder was added as well. A new 3-core mains lead & chassis earthed. Quick check with the Megger between live/neutral together & earth & all well, over 250Mohm at 250VDC, not bad for a 75+ year old transformer. With no valves in the chassis it was brought up gently on the variac & isolating transformer. All good, voltages where they should be, left on for half an hour, transformer cold, even better! Came the final moment with all the original valves in & fingers crossed it came back to life, sounds good too via the pantry TX. At least the Westector was ok! It tunes in a few other MW stations as the rest of my sets do, not bad on about 15 feet of wire indoors, overall I'm very pleased. Quite an easy set to work on, Actually looks quite pleasing too despite it's "orange crate" origins! It's been running now for a few hours without a problem, thoroughly enjoying the sound. It hasn't got its original OPT, looks like an RS "universal" from a few years back.
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The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. (Einstein) |
17th May 2021, 3:36 pm | #23 |
Triode
Join Date: Mar 2021
Location: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Posts: 37
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Re: Wartime Civilian Receiver.
Looking good!
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