Despite comment in certain magazines, 50 years experience says, a wax paper cap should not be left in a radio. Once you have eliminated them and the bad resistors & re-aligned them, most of the old radio's perform well. Leaking caps & bad resistors, ruin performance & bad alignment makes them "deaf".

The most incredible, as I have noted before, was an AWA "special" based on an R301 but severely modified (no circuit: Likely a one off). It was of similar era. The performance & sensitivity had to be experienced to believe. Modification also saw a 6A6 added as OP. At full volume no signal: no Hum. Very few newer sets could match it. It just proved what could be achieved if you were told performance not pennies mattered.

I have the same policy - all paper and electrolytic condensers get shot when doing a restoration. I don't bother testing them - it's not worth the time or energy. I just replace them one by one, double-checking the polarity of the electros as they go in.

One of the things that really concerned me about this set and no one actually commented about it was the old can capacitor that was put into service was hanging directly above the 240 volt tags on the transformer. When I say hanging I was being very literal as there was nothing securing it anywhere. The numerous wires going direct from one spot to another with hardly any sag was a issue as well. I will have to go to Jaycar this week and replenish my supply of tag strips as I really don't want to leave it that way.
This set will end up being a show stopper even though its a "No Name Set ".

I had a 6AQ5 in which the getter ring had fallen onto the pins below, shorting out the valve, and well and truly burning out the cathode resistor (only the leads were left). So it can happen.

Well I cant believe how good a performer this one is. I just had a 2 metre piece of wire as an antenna and I was receiving station after station after station all across the dial. Yes it was 8.30 at night but I have never seen this very often. Most stations were very listenable as well.

Well I have sent some more photos for this one. I have succesfully repaired the speaker and it is crystal clear now. I use a glue called Mod Podge and cut paper napkins to cover the tears and then painted the glue on with a brush and stuck the paper down and coated the top with Glue as well. Then after it dried I spray painted the cone with black engine enamel ( next time I will use flat paint ) this soaks into the old card board and strengthens it.
I also earthed all the goat shields to the chassis via solder and wire ( not the existing clamps as they don't seem to work. This set is a very good performer and once I get the new Dial off of Michael Ranaan it will be ready to complete.

cut paper napkins to cover the tears

Coffee filter paper is excellent for that role.

Photos uploaded to Post 36.

I find it preferable to not stiffen the cone. That only encourages it to crack. Medical "Micropore" and non woven fabric like Tea Bags & filter paper. I find to be good for many repairs (The cone has two sides).

I prefer not to use water based acrylic adhesive, but its ok if you use it the right way. You can actually mould it to the shape of the ridges on the rim of the cone. This is the part that has to move and certain products will stiffen it & distort its fidelity.

The object after the crack is dealt with, is to use a paint brush & coat the "MIcropore", or whatever, with the flexible adhesive.

This cone was actually falling apart to the touch. I found the paint actually was very beneficial but what I might do is use some fabric glue which comes in a spray can and is quite flexible. This speaker really has some very nice tone to it.

Paper speaker cones and their corrugated paper suspensions around the edge of the cone are made of high quality acid free paper. This is the reason they remain in good condition, ie don't go brown like an old paperback book or newspaper, after up to 90 years or so. So speaker cones should be repaired with acid free paper and adhesives ie treated as for archive paper.

I use neutral cure silicone thinned with acetone as adhesive. This can be painted on quite thinly to glue on paper patches, and is good for reinforcing the suspension corrugations if they are threadbare.

Thinning the silicone with acetone takes a bit of mixing to get it to dissolve - there is probably a better thinner.

I've always had very good results with ordinary PVA wood glue. Dries almost clear and is flexible.Water clean-up too, no nasty solvents.

Black tyre paint is great to make the cone look like new. Also water clean-up.

One little mod I am thinking of doing is putting two more dial lights in to brighten it up a bit. Is there any issues with this idea?

In the days these radios were originally used the lighting in the room was probably a 40 watt globe.
So, the dial lights would have been ideal.
I personally would not modify a vintage radio, this way.
JJ

Presumably the dial lights are supplied by the 6.3 filament winding. Adding two more dial lights in parallel shouldn't over tax it.