Johnny B
Familiar Face
- Messages
- 73
- Location
- N. America
Oh boy! It's the thread that just won't die!
If it pleases the mods, I'd like to post developments and whatnot to these so people can follow along the rebuilding process. Right now I'm dividing time between 3 radios and fooling around with the others as time warrants. I want to have these three done in a week or so.
The German radio is built like a tank crossed with a swiss watch. I'm pretty sure it could withstand a nuke but I can't find a single visible screw on it to disassemble it. I have no idea what I'm going to do with the selection buttons on the front of it yet. If anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them.
The German's shell has been cleaned, painted and the little logos rechromed. Unfortunately some idiot wrote "CHRISTMAS 10" on the top in magic marker and although I've got it pretty much eliminated, when the light hits the top right you can see where the ink bled into the plastic. Morons.
Here's the new shell, all tarted up and ready for the dance:
You can see the light gleaming off the chrome "Koerting" on the bottom. West German radios are so distinct; I absolutely love them. Hopefully someone else out there does because I haven't heard a lot of support on my end from other friends and well wishers about this model. They like the deco bakelite ones and the big wood ones and the consoles but the 50s WGerman set arouses a resounding "meh", which is a shame because I think they're some of the best looking designs out there. Hm. Maybe I'll end up keeping this one and refitting my current Admiral and selling it.
The third set (German, coffee bean and this guy) is a little Motorola which had nothing but a speaker inside and the dials were on the floor nearby in the storage room (which is flooding so I'm trying to work fast here). It was remarkably well preserved, minus of course its chassis:
I will probably do the dials (aren't they cute?) in a satin white finish, bake that on and see if I can't bring the numbers back in a black, or, if failing that, just leave it as two large white buttons. This one will probably be done first because I only have 1 speaker circuit left and I do not want any more single buttons. However, finding an affordable stock of wholesale speakers that aren't a) USB powered and b) sucky is very very hard. I might end up having to buy old sets from thirft stores as I find them.
Another issue then is the desoldering/resoldering of the volume and power dials. Right now I can just stick the whole circuit board onto wood and have the dial poke out the case's hole but I want to be able to use a radio's power AND tuning switch so I'd have to desolder from the circut board the volume and power controls, solder wire onto the board in its place, and then solder the controls onto the other end of the wire, and build new custom settings for THOSE, which I'm not sure I'm that comfortable doing right now skill wise. Hopefully I learn fast.
I've also learned that during speaker tests where I see if the original speaker is still working, there is often a little block attached to the back of the speaker cone with that seems to be a very tightly wrapped cube of copper wire that the speaker wire goes into and using these inputs often gets a poor sound reception but if I attach the wires directly to where this cube thing attaches then I get explosive, deep and loud sound. I think these things are dampners of some sort. I dont know!
And hey here's a treat: A video of the German radio's speaker test (the one with the tear). It apparently still works pretty good, half a century later!
Klicken Sie hier! Schnell! SCHNELL!
To those who have emailed or PMd me about custom radios, thank you, and I am working as best I can to get them functional. I should expect the first batch of non-auction radios done in a week or so.
More updates as they happen! Hope you aren't ready to murder me yet!
If it pleases the mods, I'd like to post developments and whatnot to these so people can follow along the rebuilding process. Right now I'm dividing time between 3 radios and fooling around with the others as time warrants. I want to have these three done in a week or so.
The German radio is built like a tank crossed with a swiss watch. I'm pretty sure it could withstand a nuke but I can't find a single visible screw on it to disassemble it. I have no idea what I'm going to do with the selection buttons on the front of it yet. If anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them.
The German's shell has been cleaned, painted and the little logos rechromed. Unfortunately some idiot wrote "CHRISTMAS 10" on the top in magic marker and although I've got it pretty much eliminated, when the light hits the top right you can see where the ink bled into the plastic. Morons.
Here's the new shell, all tarted up and ready for the dance:
You can see the light gleaming off the chrome "Koerting" on the bottom. West German radios are so distinct; I absolutely love them. Hopefully someone else out there does because I haven't heard a lot of support on my end from other friends and well wishers about this model. They like the deco bakelite ones and the big wood ones and the consoles but the 50s WGerman set arouses a resounding "meh", which is a shame because I think they're some of the best looking designs out there. Hm. Maybe I'll end up keeping this one and refitting my current Admiral and selling it.
The third set (German, coffee bean and this guy) is a little Motorola which had nothing but a speaker inside and the dials were on the floor nearby in the storage room (which is flooding so I'm trying to work fast here). It was remarkably well preserved, minus of course its chassis:
I will probably do the dials (aren't they cute?) in a satin white finish, bake that on and see if I can't bring the numbers back in a black, or, if failing that, just leave it as two large white buttons. This one will probably be done first because I only have 1 speaker circuit left and I do not want any more single buttons. However, finding an affordable stock of wholesale speakers that aren't a) USB powered and b) sucky is very very hard. I might end up having to buy old sets from thirft stores as I find them.
Another issue then is the desoldering/resoldering of the volume and power dials. Right now I can just stick the whole circuit board onto wood and have the dial poke out the case's hole but I want to be able to use a radio's power AND tuning switch so I'd have to desolder from the circut board the volume and power controls, solder wire onto the board in its place, and then solder the controls onto the other end of the wire, and build new custom settings for THOSE, which I'm not sure I'm that comfortable doing right now skill wise. Hopefully I learn fast.
I've also learned that during speaker tests where I see if the original speaker is still working, there is often a little block attached to the back of the speaker cone with that seems to be a very tightly wrapped cube of copper wire that the speaker wire goes into and using these inputs often gets a poor sound reception but if I attach the wires directly to where this cube thing attaches then I get explosive, deep and loud sound. I think these things are dampners of some sort. I dont know!
And hey here's a treat: A video of the German radio's speaker test (the one with the tear). It apparently still works pretty good, half a century later!
Klicken Sie hier! Schnell! SCHNELL!
To those who have emailed or PMd me about custom radios, thank you, and I am working as best I can to get them functional. I should expect the first batch of non-auction radios done in a week or so.
More updates as they happen! Hope you aren't ready to murder me yet!
