New Vintage Audio Restoration HQ

Update on the ~1928 unit.

It STINKS!

I took it out of the case today an will be throughly cleaning the inside of the case with naphtha and then spray shellac to seal in any remaining orders while protecting the wood.

The unit itself I turned upside down and lightly sprayed vinegar and water to neutralize any of the orders on the wires and parts.

I'm going for a purely cosmetic restoration on this as a display piece as I don't think I could afford the cost of buying all those caps to replace!

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So after 4 hours this is not going according to plan.

It's 98 years old and this is by FAR the most difficult to penetrate grime I've ever encountered.

I've come to believe it's dried oil and grease which is why it won't really come off and just smears.

I have tried four APC's, degreasers, special panel wipes (three of them), 4 different rinses washes and SEVEN different polishes all the way down to 400 grit.

The 400 grit is removing it but it's going to take about 10 applications as it starts to come up and then simply smears.

I've also realized it is so caked on, I'm going to have to remove EVERY SINGLE CAPACITOR to remove the brass nubs that stick up on the front side to have a clear panel with no tight spots to be able to blanket clean.

I estimate another 12-15 hours to go. I still need to hand polish every single one of the brass numbs and posts.


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Michaels HiFi said:
So after 4 hours this is not going according to plan.

It's 98 years old and this is by FAR the most difficult to penetrate grime I've ever encountered.

I've come to believe it's dried oil and grease which is why it won't really come off and just smears.

I have tried four APC's, degreasers, special panel wipes (three of them), 4 different rinses washes and SEVEN different polishes all the way down to 400 grit.

The 400 grit is removing it but it's going to take about 10 applications as it starts to come up and then simply smears.

I've also realized it is so caked on, I'm going to have to remove EVERY SINGLE CAPACITOR to remove the brass nubs that stick up on the front side to have a clear panel with no tight spots to be able to blanket clean.

I estimate another 12-15 hours to go. I still need to hand polish every single one of the brass numbs and posts.



View attachment 35607
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Those look like coils to me! I don't think I see even a single capacitor in this shot. They will be a bit of a trick to source if you damage one- be careful!
 
atmasphere said:
Those look like coils to me! I don't think I see even a single capacitor in this shot. They will be a bit of a trick to source if you damage one- be careful!
Click to expand...

Yeah - this is ~1928 and I bet these parts are near unobtanium.

On this one piece I am going to do a cosmetic restoration only and not attempt to restore the electronics part. Some of the wires have disintegrated and have just broken off with age and even if I could find the parts to restore, I bet it would cost BIG money. LOL
 
Michaels HiFi said:
Yeah - this is ~1928 and I bet these parts are near unobtanium.

On this one piece I am going to do a cosmetic restoration only and not attempt to restore the electronics part. Some of the wires have disintegrated and have just broken off with age and even if I could find the parts to restore, I bet it would cost BIG money. LOL
Click to expand...
Or you might be able to rewind the coils. After all, they are only a certain amount of turns on their forms. If you can find a schematic it would tell you what the values are (and might even specify the number of turns required).
 
atmasphere said:
Or you might be able to rewind the coils. After all, they are only a certain amount of turns on their forms. If you can find a schematic it would tell you what the values are (and might even specify the number of turns required).
Click to expand...
So far I'm about 15 hours into this and I haven't even started the wood case stripping and restoration.

I used to details cars professional in college and I have received and restored some pretty old pieces lately so I'm very experienced cleaning surfaces in all conditions. But I have never, ever, ever come across a unit as near impossible to clean as this one.

It is literally grease and grime with oil over it, then more grease and grime, then more oil. So not only is it nearly impossible to penetrate the grime, every time I start to a little bit it simply smears and clogs up what every application type I am using.

I have used APC's (19 applications) , degreasers(23 applications) , rinse less washes (15 applications), citrus degreasers (8 applications), panel prep's (10 applications), steel wool, 9 different kinds of compounds, 7 different applicator types from 3M woven pads to wool cutting pads both by hand and and machine.

Having said that, I went hard core for about 4 hours today and have just emerged victorious. I needed to clean up the heavy scratches from cleaning so I used Menzerna 400 (17 applications), then 1000 (8 applications) then 2500 (4 applications), then Scholl's S20 with diminishing abrasives to clean it all up. Usually one application of S20 works, I had to do 7 applications to get it looking good but not trying to make it look new. Just cleaned up and nice.

All in all I have used $1,500 in polishers (Flex Rotary and Flex Random), applicators, cleaners, polishes, and more to get it to this point. Mind you I didn't buy this stuff for this as I've previously bought it - but it's the value of the purchase price of what I've used if I did need to buy it.

Now I need to hand clean every single piece I took off, reassemble and then start on the wood case.

Here is a before and after:


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