I found an old radio in my grandmothers house and I would like to restore/mod it so that it can be used again. I have no idea what model it is, but I'm going to try and retrofit a modern fullrange speaker and amplifier into the cabinet so that it can once again be used.
From the pictures it would seem that there was a 4" fullrange up top and an 8" bass driver down below. Any suggestions as far as replacement speakers? I do plan on building boxes into the cabinet so that the retrofits will perform as well as possible
From the pictures it would seem that there was a 4" fullrange up top and an 8" bass driver down below. Any suggestions as far as replacement speakers? I do plan on building boxes into the cabinet so that the retrofits will perform as well as possible
just press the /!\ button on the far left of any post and ask a moderator to move it to the tubes section.
the dial wire you can buy off ebay, you will need to get rid of that rust somehow, dont lose the dial spring, get an ice cream container to store all of the small parts in and get a larger box to store everything else in.
restoring the cabinet is easy and all you need to do is carefully sand it back and recoat it with some beeswax shellac.
the speaker could very well be a rarer type but i would suggest that if you want to go brand new that you look into some guitar amplifier speakers as substitutes
make sure you insulate all of the wires again, you can get cloth wire again off ebay but unless you are going to show it off i suggest you just use plain wire.
make sure that you dont throw away the round metal can that goes over that tube, it is necessary for the operation of the radio, its an rfi shield.
dont take the tubes out of the chassis but instead make sure that you write down what each tube is on a piece of paper before you continue any further.
dont forget to upload more pics of the chassis, and note any markings that you find down on paper
the dial wire you can buy off ebay, you will need to get rid of that rust somehow, dont lose the dial spring, get an ice cream container to store all of the small parts in and get a larger box to store everything else in.
restoring the cabinet is easy and all you need to do is carefully sand it back and recoat it with some beeswax shellac.
the speaker could very well be a rarer type but i would suggest that if you want to go brand new that you look into some guitar amplifier speakers as substitutes
make sure you insulate all of the wires again, you can get cloth wire again off ebay but unless you are going to show it off i suggest you just use plain wire.
make sure that you dont throw away the round metal can that goes over that tube, it is necessary for the operation of the radio, its an rfi shield.
dont take the tubes out of the chassis but instead make sure that you write down what each tube is on a piece of paper before you continue any further.
dont forget to upload more pics of the chassis, and note any markings that you find down on paper
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That radio chassis doesn't belong to that cabinet. Also, the speaker in the top of the cabinet is not original. It looks a bit like someone fitted the chassis and speaker from a small mantel radio to the large cabinet. It also looks like the chassis is transformerless - run directly off 117 volt mains - which is extremely dangerous.
The radio looks like a "All American 5". I restored one, that belonged to my grand mother made in 1948, I replaced all the capacitors and tubes, and it now works like a champ. The radio however was in better shape. I agree with Don Hills though that it doesn't belong to that radio. All American Five - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I would suggest a full range speaker like a "Betsy K" or "Audio Nirvana", and small mono amp around 1-10 watts or so. The amp could be in any flavor, but personally I think tubed would be better. Hook it to a old CD player with summed outputs, and get some CD's recorded in mono. Stereo CD's will still work however, but just with mono sound.
I would suggest a full range speaker like a "Betsy K" or "Audio Nirvana", and small mono amp around 1-10 watts or so. The amp could be in any flavor, but personally I think tubed would be better. Hook it to a old CD player with summed outputs, and get some CD's recorded in mono. Stereo CD's will still work however, but just with mono sound.
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