Hi, I'm new here. I'm also new to the idea of restoring old valve radios. (Although I knew my way around 'em when I was (much) younger).

I have restored my share of 70's and 80's stuff, but nothing pre-1950.

Now I have been given a Kriesler 11-7, in grimy but otherwise original condition. Nothing broken or missing, but I'm not game to power it up till I've changed the power cord and some capacitors. It was last turned off and wrapped up in plastic some 20-30 years ago, I believe.

I think it will look like mint once it's cleaned up, but wonder what the best way is to clean the brown bakelite cabinet. I'm asking because I don't want to use anything which might react and amage the finish. (Does anything react with bakelite?) I'm also wondering about the tuning dial. Are the old painted station callsigns, etc, likely to be safe with a bit of detergent and water?

G'day Idealist,

You raise an important question about washing station dials.

Before even dusting them it is important to establish the answer to this question because it will apply to some dials but not others.

Some station dials were marked with some sort of enamel substance and this is generally impervious to water, dusting, scrubbing, etc. Other dials were marked with a water-based substance that will wash off straight away. It's almost like these dial markings are of some chalky material.

The best way to test is to go to one corner of the dial and rub a very small, inconspicuous part of the dial markings an see whether it rubs off or not. If it rubs off then this is where you stop and plan a better way of cleaning it. Bear in mind at this stage that it may be impossible to clean it at all without destroying the markings altogether.

If the marking stays intact then rub the same area with a damp cotton bud and see what happens. Once again, if the marking then rubs off then you need to consider whether the dial is worth cleaning to begin with. If the marking does not rub off then it may be okay to wash the dial. I will refrain from openly recommending simply bathing the dial for obvious reasons.

Dials with delicate dial markings can, at best, only be cleaned by using a cotton bud and removing dust from the blank parts of the glass, avoiding where possible, any contact with the markings.

As for the cabinet itself, once you have removed the chassis, grille cloth and any other fittings it is generally okay to immerse the cabinet in warm soapy water and scrubbed with an old toothbrush. Kriesler, Astor and a few other brands made cabinets with rather delicate grilles so don't push very hard on them, they are like wishbones on a chook. Apart from that it is okay and sometimes necessary to use a big of elbow grease.

Some radios have a piece of paper glued inside with valve types and a chassis layout. These generally survive a 'dunking' but not being scrubbed.

Hi, and thanks for the info, Brad.

I have now dismantled the set, and it seems in amazingly good condition inside, although very dusty. All the components look good; as new, in fact, except for one of the dial lamp holders, which has melted and was stuck in a gooey mess to the bottom of the case. Even the speaker cone looks good!

I'm just about to get out the vacuum cleaner, to remove most of the dust.

As to the dial, it appears to be properly painted, but it's also STUCK to the mounts each end with some kind of black goo, and I'm afraid to even TRY to remove it, because I just KNOW it will crack. Having cleaned the front with windex, I might just ignore any dirt on the back.

I've established it's an 11-7E, with the power supply choke dated Feb 1948.

Fortunately I found a circuit and a small mine of
information for the set on another site...

(Dunno what your policy is on posting links, so I won't.)

Thanks again,

Michael

It's okay to post a link if it's relevant though it can be a bit tricky. You have a choice of either typing the URL itself which will appear as text or you can use HTML (replace angle brackets with square brackets in the hyperlink) to make the link clickable. One thing that is still on my to-do list is to include a page here that shows people how to do this sort of thing on the forums and also things like italics, bold and underline. This will come soon.

Thanks for info.

BTW, by experimenting, I found that a good way to clean the bakelite cabinet is to cut the bristles of a 1" paint brush to about half their length, (not much shorter or they will leave scratches) then dip it in a strong detergent solution and scrub lightly. Then wipe off with a cloth damped with plain water, or simply rinse off, if you've previously detached any water sensitive bits. You may have to repeat a couple of times... I've used this technique for years on all sorts of other equipment. Very good for aluminium panels and knobs, also.

I might give that a try on some of my bigger cabinets. The toothbrush can be time-consuming because of its size.

Hi Brad and Michael
I just use Brasso and a soft cloth to polish Bakelite, comes up to a mirror shine, I then finish it off with a fine car polish.
Peter