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Multiple
coats of lacquer have now been sprayed on with flatting between
coats. A coloured cellulose coat has been included for grain
and repair masking purposes. The stippled appearance in the
photo isn't real - it's an artifact produced from trying to
sharpen a blurred original. |
| Here's
the driver pinion assembly for the record cutter arm; siezed
of course, but not too hard to free off. Yes, this model incorporates
a recording facility, as well as being able to play
records in the normal way ! The original recording disks were
made of aluminium with a plastic coating. |
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This
front motor bearing was also siezed and some garage-style
techniques were necessary to pull it off. The motor was designed
to work from US-style 60Hz mains. To adapt it for our UK 50Hz
supply two neoprene shrink sleeves were later added to the
capstan (on the left end of the bearing seen here) to increase
its radius. The final speed achieved was spot-on 78 rpm. However
I do suspect that this 60Hz-rated motor may run at a higher temperature when fed from a 50Hz supply. |
So a thermal reset was added to the motor for extra safety.
It
had proved possible to remove the siezed turntable after several
days-worth of penetrating oil down the central spindle. Here
we see the turntable after it has been re-covered with dark
brown felt. |
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The
chassis is cleaned and restoration is started. A lot of the
wiring has to be replaced where it has abraded whilst going
through holes in the chassis. Lafayette had not used grommets.
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| Sadly
the mains transformer is revealed as having shorted turns
and overheats. It's replaced with a larger unit from a similar-period
Philco. The chassis has to be slightly re-cut to accomodate
this. A thermal reset was added to protect this transformer. |
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Getting
it together now... The delightful dial, printed on top of
a form of silver foil, needs minimal attention to look nice
again. The 6G5 magic eye is fine, though it only really responds
as strong stations are tuned. Both the on/off volume and tone
potentiometers need replacing. All the valves test fine. |
| Bad
news from the gram deck. The die-cast pickup cartridge gives
no signal when checked on the scope...
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