Hi All,
I have been given a valve radio by a neighbour when he was moving out of our street. The information he gave me was it was a radio his father made and it has been sitting in his shed for near on the last 40 years.

When I received it the other day it certainly is old, the cabinet is of rough plywood with a chipboard base. This obviously is not the original cabinet.
I would like to restore this radio by cleaning it up and hopefully either finding a cabinet for it, or building a cabinet for it.

The radio appears to be a early 1920's BEALE Panchromatic Radio, (as the damaged sticker says).
It has 5 valves being a 6A8,6K7,6Q7,6F6 and a 5Y3.

The front dial glass is broken, it has four knobs (one missing).

Would anyone know of the cabinet it originally had?
Thanks

The valves you have listed are more modern than 1920, more like mid to late 1930s.

According to Radiomuseum, there was Beale Panchromatic of 1937 with this valve lineup:

AK2 6D6 75 42 80
AK2 6D6 6B7S 42 80

I'm wondering if perhaps a newer chassis has been fitted to it. The lineup you quote was used by (for example) Airzone, Kriesler and STC circa 1936.

Does it have shortwave, or is it broadcast band only?

Some photos would be helpful. You can email them to Brad (see note 6 above the message box).

Here's some info on Beale:

Beale & Co. Ltd, Sydney.

Although primarily a manufacturer of pianos, Beale branded radios were well known in the 1930s. They did not make chassis, only cabinets. Chassis used in Beale branded radios were made by Breville, Kriesler, STC and others. Beale also made cabinets for use by other radio manufacturers.

Founded: 1893
Closed: 1961
Production: 1931 - 1940

History:
Octavius Beale started manufacturing pianos in Annandale Sydney in 1893 and the factory eventually became the largest piano maker in the Southern Hemisphere and in the British Empire. By the late 20's they were making about 2500 per year.

The Great Depression and the popularity of radio hit Beale very hard such that even by 1936-37 their piano production was less than one tenth that of the 1926-27 figure. This downturn forced the firm to look elsewhere for profits.

Their expertise in cabinet making and veneer production was turned to the construction of radio cabinets in 1931.
Production of radios ceased just after the start of WWII and was not resumed afterwards. The company was sold to W.H. Paling & Co. in 1961 and the last piano was made in about 1975.

Hi GTC, I have photos but family life has intervened like it tends to. Will email them when I can. The dial has a lot of station names around it at the top half-and-half numbers like 1400, 1100 etc frequencies on the bottom half of the scale. My research since is agreeing with you about it being a 1930's radio.

It is strange that the ARTS&P label is absent as this would bring the date of manufacture down to a particular year. That said, some manufacturers stuck them on the side of the chassis so it is worth poking around to see if it is still there. The serial number on this sticker has a letter prefix to indicate the year of manufacture, with the letter A representing 1934, B 1935 and so on.

I'm going to guess at 1936 here, due to the styling of the tuning dial. The chassis, as pointed out by GTC, was not Beale's doing and in this case is likely by STC or Breville as those companies painted their chasses in the gold paint seen here. Breville were known for putting that celluloid plate on the rear of the chassis showing the valve compliment so with this, Breville may indeed be the constructor.

Beale were not what one might call mass-producers in the same way AWA or Astor were and thus it will not be easy to find a cabinet that goes with this chassis. If you are a skilled carpenter and joiner you may want to make a replica cabinet once you know what it should look like.

Bunnings will sell almost everything that would be required from the plywood to iron-on veneers right down to the PVA glue and nails. No fancy joints were employed by the cabinet makers when designing radio cabinets, unless one calls rebate joints fancy. To get around production line bottlenecks there were a lot of battens and butt joints.

The dial has a lot of station names around it at the top half-and-half numbers like 1400, 1100 etc frequencies on the bottom half of the scale.

It's a dual wave set as indicated on the dial under the word Beale.

The top half of the dial is for local broadcast band (aka medium wave) and the bottom half is for shortwave. One of the knobs will be a band switch.

Dual wave sets were very common in that era, and shortwave listening to the rest of the world was a popular pastime, especially for immigrants.

As for the original cabinet, that may well have been a floor standing console style set, with a large speaker mounted below the chassis. Did a speaker come with it from your neighbour?

Awesome, thanks guys. I will have a poke around the sides of the cabinet a bit later in the week. What would be the best way of removing all the dust? I was thinking vacuum cleaner to start with, then maybe a soft brush and vacuum cleaner.

I will keep an eye out for the ARTS&P sticker while I am doing it.

I don't think there is a speaker fitted to this enclosure. I was considering knocking the enclosure apart and carefully cleaning the radio.

It would be awesome to actually nail down how this radio originally looked because the plan is to make up a replica cabinet for it as close as possible to the original. That would be a nice challenge for me to complete

Aha! Having zoomed-up your photo, I note that the valve layout label says "555W".

I do have a reference to a 1936 Beale model 555WG which was a dual wave console, however I don't have its valve line-up. Seems you have now given us that missing data.

Radiomuseum calls the model "Ear-Line Audition 555WG" and makes this note: "This model has an unusual cabinet, curved at the top. The speaker is at the top, tilted slightly upwards. The dial and controls are below the speaker grill."

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a photo or line drawing of that model, but here's a promotional piece from a 1936 article about a radio exhibition: "Beale radio sets offer attractive features. Including full vision edge-lit dials, tone chamber and metal valves and ear-line audition. Tone quality is dissipated and fine inflections lost with the speaker at the base of the cabinet, but with the speaker located higher in the cabinet as in the Beale these disadvantages are not suffered The Beale patented tone chamber provides perfect baffling and also prevents interaction between the chassis and the loudspeaker."

So, your hopes of either finding a cabinet for it, or building a cabinet for it may have become more difficult given its relative novelty.

As regards speaker, if you didn't get one with the radio then that's another issue for you if you hope to restore the set to working order -- no speaker, no sound. The speaker for this model is given as "Electro Magnetic Dynamic LS (moving-coil with field excitation coil)" and the multi-pin socket at right rear of the chassis seems to support that statement.

There is a further reference to Wireless Weekly Australia 18/12/36, p14. Someone here may have access to that page, on which there might be a photo or drawing of this model.

I do believe there is a photograph of one of these in one of Steve Savells books I will take a look for you later but you would do well to contact him about this.

I have a Beale Panchromatic radio coming up in my forthcoming auction, and while the valve line up is different, it is a dual wave model and both the dial and the 4 knob layout appear the same as yours. My chassis was made by Breville, as many Beale units were.

Your chassis may well have started life in this console cabinet. A plug for my auction.. http://www.haroldsradiosale.com/. The radio is listed with photo as lot 73.

Harold

Harold, that's interesting.

Is there a valve line-up plate on the rear of the chassis? If so, what are the valves and does it also have a model number on the top right of that plate?

There is a plate with the valve layout, but no model number. The chassis is identical to the Breville model 70, "Ferrodine" and both the panel and the actual valves are: AK2, 6K7, E444N, 6F6, 80

I have not been able to determine my model number and I think the "Panchromatic" name covered several models. Also, the ARTS&P sticker is just about unreadable so it doesn't help.
Harold

The chassis is identical to the Breville model 70, "Ferrodine"

Radiomuseum says of the Breville 70: "... This model was also available in the "Devon" cabinet for £27/5/-, the "New Beale" cabinet for £28/5/- or the "Edward" cabinet for £36/5/-."

At a guess, yours may be the New Beale cabinet.

I think the "Panchromatic" name covered several models.

That seems to be the case. Radiomuseum only lists 1:

Beale 1937 Panchromatic 751 [with 75 valve.]
Beale 1937 Panchromatic 751 [with 6B7S valve]

... and then there's yours and now there's DaveJ's "555" chassis.

It would be great to get a photo of the "ear-line" cabinet with the top-mounted speaker to complete the details of the 555 on Radiomuseum.

On the subject of the auction... Just six short weeks away and I am looking forward to the big day.

Look what we have, courtesy of Stuart Irwin.

Harold, may we post your set's image here for posterity?