I just bought this on eBay. it's got a lot to do and has no cabinet but I want to fix the internals and put it in a nice box until I find the original. I will send some pics shortly please as much advice as possible.

There is about 2 milimetres of surface rust on the top of the console but its still pretty solid.

Don't see the point of the valve photo's & they could have been cropped, to save space. Philips is the odd one out with a "P" base.

A flash can ruin a photo & I do consider photo's with serious "depth of field" & focus issues to not, in many cases be helpful. Perhaps tissue paper of the flash to soften it & be prepared to actually step back & crop the photo later; use aperture priority to get more depth in field & tissue over the flash to soften the light.

Use manual focus on something in about the middle of the point of interest. Auto focus can be hell close up.

A photo of the inside of the pan would also be useful, to see how bad things are in there?

Without pointing at any particular example, because there are a lot of them, many photos included in threads, by myself or members, sometimes could have been done better.

Soon there will be a page here with guidelines on what will become a minimum standard for photos. To address the comment above, a good solution would be to take a nice sharp photo of all five valves alongside each other rather than portraits. All photos on this website appear at 800px wide, so the five valves would fit. Focus and light are also important, though again I'll cover this in greater detail in the next few weeks.

Still to come is a feature that will let members post their own photos at the time of commenting. To be honest I am worried about the return of this feature. I touch up and light-balance a lot of the photos that appear here so the problem is not evident at the end of the day and to be honest I think members should make their own efforts in this regard. Quality of images is just as important as the clarity of comments, and I am also still editing comments on a wholesale basis for clarity due to missing capital letters, fullstops and another strange habit some have of including a large chunk of whitespace underneath their posts, again, which I need to edit out.

Anyway, the feature mentioned above will soon be back after an absence of many years though be advised, there will be rules on how it gets used.

I will have to get the Nikon out and do a better job I think.

I recently bought a D5100 to replace the second 35mm camera (Nikon) that has just plain worn out. I noted that the 70mm one alone has chewed through over 250 rolls of 120 reversal Roll film.

With a digital like the D5100, whist they behave differently in some respects most of the film camera rules apply. With a digital there is no excuse for not knowing & presenting a photo that is a failure.

I normally do all the editing & resizing on computer. Albeit that Nikon has an anti shake feature, a tripod helps a lot when doing close ups as that is where any movement is critical, and auto-focus can be a curse. Often it is better with a shiny pan, to move back & let a flash disperse a bit (if it needs it at all) and crop the photo as that will improve depth of field. For depth of field the higher number (smallest aperture) that you can get away with, will yield the sharpest photo. The aperture is part of controlling the depth of focus.

Sharp photos have significant relevance to radio repair. You need them for questions & identification and also for reference, before you remove so much as a screw. That way you know after a senior moment, or the standard interruptions, where the part was before you removed it.

Criticism is not always for a negative purpose.

Marc

The wife has hidden the nikon grrrr but I have managed to get some good ones with my samsung tablet I will ask if the others can be deleted and these put in . when the photos are up you will see I have one and a half goat shields. if any of you guys have one or the top half to spare I would be prepared to pay for it please.

This looks like a surface mount tube?

This is the radio that I want to restore and install into a mantle cabinet. I might even resort to getting a carpenter to manufacture a cabinet for me. but if any of you have or know the whereabouts of a orphaned cabinet I would love to have a look. when the photos come up of the pilot mantle radio
that I have acquired this is exactly what I need ie the same measurements but I would never bastardise that one.

Pre-emptive strike: Goat shields have halves & they are different. One half has a "U" shaped groove for the lead to the TC to feed the grid, & provide somewhere for its teminal to short to.

What is commonly missing is the tang that goes from pin 1 (normally) to the shield.

Marc

This looks like a surface mount tube?

This is a Philips P-base valve and there's a couple of sizes for the socket, which is usually about 20mm deep, so most of the base is inside the valve socket.

They are a rare beast in this part of the world by comparison to the octal series though a few Australian radios were fitted with them for some ungodly reason. Those I've seen are Kriesler Projectographic from 1938 and an Airzone Radiostar from 1937. The Kriesler had one and the Airzone Radiostar (a deadly transmformerless AC/DC model) had five of them and an ES-base baretter.

These valves were far more common in European radios.

New pictures from Carl are received and will go up tonight.

P-base valves were not that uncommon in Australia prior to WW2. They were imported into the country by Philips and were used in their locally manufactured receivers until about 1940. Other local manufacturers prior to 1940 also used P-base valves either wholly or mixed with US types.

When Philips tooled up to manufacture valves in Australia they made octal based versions of the P-base. Valve types included EBF2G, EK2G, EL3NG, etc. They are electrically the same as their P-base counterparts.

The P-base valve that is the subject of this thread I'm guessing could be an EK2. The other valves look like 6D6, 6B7S & 42. The rectifier is not shown but would probably be an 80.

The shields are not "Goat" shields & they follow the profile of the valve and have "Goat" embossed into them.

6D6 (same as 6U7) is one to watch with a goat shield anyway. Tends to be bad news & anything can happen.

6B7 is repairable, if you don't know how to do it ask. I for one, have repaired quite a few & do make sure others are OK & not loose. There is always risk in removing a "P" base valve fracturing the wire to the metalisation is one if the glass to base bond is poor.

Often it is better with a shiny pan, to move back & let a flash disperse a bit (if it needs it at all) and crop the photo as that will improve depth of field. For depth of field the higher number (smallest aperture) that you can get away with, will yield the sharpest photo. The aperture is part of controlling the depth of focus.

You can avoid flash problems altogether with most cameras if they have a self-timer. Whack it on the tripod, turn off the flash, set the self-timer to 5seconds, and the camera can take as long an exposure as it needs, without any vibration or hand-movement. Usually this allows much better depth of field than any flash/auto can achieve, and no artifacts..

Maven

I just identified this as the the 1937 Reliance SUPER SKY RAIDER. It ran 5 dynamic speakers. It was a bit strange as it only had 5 valves and considered to be underpowered.
So I really think its worth fixing even if I cant find the original cabinet for it. Now I do want some advice . as you can see there is a fair bit of rust but the chassis I believe is redeemable.

What do you use to free up the nuts and bolts? I am also going to detach the tuning gang from the chassis so I can replace the chassis grommets between it and the chassis. Is there a cleaning solution I can soak it in for a while just to spruce it up a bit? As its going to be apart for a while I would be thinking about soaking it for quite a while. Thoughts please because if its not recomended then I would like to know. Also, the wave change switch is frozen but my old mate who does the trickier parts thinks he can free it up.