Hey guys I just got this baby. I'm told its a goer. I just want to practice my french polishing on it and try to make it a beauty.

A true bushman's receiver, that one.

I have heard that works story before. Tubes light up is an eBay regular chestnut.

When you remove the chassis, perhaps take a photo of the inside of the pan. & show us and please do not use a white sheet, they are akin to a mirror and you can use one to reflect & soften shadows. i.e Fire the removable flash into it & a soft light is the result. Neutral grey is good for nearly everything

I fix them; so this warning to look first, is cynicism based on real life experience.

Marc

Tubes light up is an eBay regular chestnut.

And sometimes followed by 'but all I heard was loud humming' which unbeknown to them means the thing is about to pop something important, like the power transformer.

I have had two like that recently: Cooked transformer & there is a litany of them on the American forum. A lot of theirs have no transformers, and ones that do seem to get burnt out by the over zealous with regular monotony.

Zeniths have weak transformers that seem to fail due to them being extremely marginal and they increased their mains voltage since they were built, which pushes many of them over the edge. If that doesn't, the old electrolytic's that have lost polarity, soon will.

Unlike ours, their transformers, when used, in the main seem to lack primary tappings, so many of them have no way of compensating for the increase in volts, thrust upon them. At least the vast majority of ours had a range from 200V to 260V. and the latter is where most now, should be set.

Just because it is battery does not mean that you are safe. Short circuits are short circuits.......equals probable damage.

The only one I have had that came to me "humming" was one that was in service (daily driver). As soon as that happened I won it to fix as they realised there was something going wrong & stopped using it.

It was one of the most dangerous sets I had seen. The mains cable had bare patches & all the rubber wire was finished & rotten. However, as it was working, there was little to test and the refit only took an evening. Love sets like that, fast in & out; simple & stress free.

Marc

Dont get me wrong I'm not going to power it up until I know its ok lol. some of those ebay sellers really should not comment at all lol.

Well this baby just arrived today and I tell you its a much nicer radio in the flesh. It's much bigger than the photos suggest. The case is in pretty good order so it wont take me much to pretty it up.

Possibly Model 511M.
http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/amalgamate_radiola_511m.html

It's a model 608-T

Well whats happening now is this. My good friend that is helping with the electrical work has offered to convert it to ac. he just happens to have a ac chassis which fits perfectly into this one . My main purpose for purchasing this baby was so I had a relatively easy cabinet to practice my french polishing on. so here we go again another radio has been saved for enjoyment in the future hey.

Hi guys its been a long hall for this baby. I have finally been able to put a little colour on this one. This is the first coat of shellac and I have to say its not too bad. Not perfect but a good effort I believe.

When I was taking a good look at this old girl a few months back I decided "NO I wasn't going to convert it to AC " because everything was there and I decided to rebuild it all including the vibrator power supply of which you have seen in a different discussion. I can proudly say that it all works and 90% of the work was all mine. Now I have to find a tuning Knob for it . but that's no issue my friend who taught me how to do this is helping me with one.