Hello all,

Coming up soon in my queue is an Astor Mickey EC for my partner (who liked one she saw in a museum so much she found one for herself!). This one's in pretty good nick and electrical restoration shouldn't be a problem, but will need the tattered grille cloth & yellowed/milky/crazed dial cover replaced to look good enough for her to display. Can anyone suggest a source for suitable cloth of similar (or at least period-accurate) pattern/weight, and/or dial covers?

I vaguely recall seeing someone (an antique shop in NSW/ACT?) selling dial covers for similar models, but I got the impression there's subtle differences between the EC/BP/EG/etc models and I now can't recall/find the seller anyway. I can probably make a mold and vacuum-form one to suit, but if I can find one easily at a reasonable price I'll just buy it.

Any help with sourcing cloth or dial cover would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Rod.

There are members of the HRSA and itself that advertise a wide range of goods & services, The yellowing is from the fact that it is a Nitro Cellulose plastic.

Do beware with dial globes there are the long tube 300mA types and small round one of 150mA. The 300mA type will burn a hole in some dials.

If you search Ebay for “vintage Astor speaker cloth”, you will find almost the exact replacement and period.
32X20 inches $25.
I have an EC that used this exact cloth. Good result but not all that easy to do, as you will find out.
Made my own Perspex dial cover from some old flat stock that I’ve been hoarding.
Unfortunately my EC has a faulty power transformer due to monkeys plugging wrong valves into chassis and leaving it running.
Till the smoke came out. Yes uses series filaments and the audio output is 25 volt. Not a 6V6!!!!
Anyone have a transformer, which at this stage would be my easiest option.
JJ

(Apologies for the delay in replying; router/gateway died and I had to wait until today to get the replacement I wanted.)

Thank you Marcc and Johnny for the tips - I've actually worked on an EC and BP previously that only needed minor electronic attention so I'm aware of some of those pitfalls, but no doubt I'll find others.

Johnny, can you point me to a link or seller? I'm not finding anything at the moment, and the only thing I've seen recently that looked close-ish was some sold by the well-known gentleman in Stawell. I asked them about weight since the original stuff is pretty light, but the reply I received was ... let's say less informative about that aspect than I had hoped.

From a quick test, the transformers - mains, IF, and speaker - in this one are all fine. The speaker cone is probably a write-off, but I can handle that including the voicecoil if needed. Making a new dial cover from acrylic sheet likewise shouldn't be an issue; the original is still in one piece so I can make a form/pattern & I'll just have to find a small piece of suitable acrylic sheet locally.

Yes you guessed the supplier.
However the cloth is as exact as you can get, and very light in weight. A very fine weave.
Which does make the job a little tricky as previously mentioned.
I have collected, brought and scrounged a large quantity of speaker cloths over the years.
This gold speckled cloth is identical in period to that used by Astor and other manufacturers in the 1930/40’s.
And is now the best I have for these early models.
Really looks the part.
JJ

Thanks Johnny,
Ah well - pity they no longer have it listed; I would've bought a couple of large pieces if they'd answered my question.

I've got some other that will work, but it's completely plain and a bit light-coloured so won't look great. It'll have to do until something better turns up. Though I might ask a fabric-crafty friend if she thinks the stuff I have could be dyed darker to tone it down a bit.

Thank everyone for the help.

You would be surprised what you can find at lincraft or any of the other material shops. Another contact is John McIlwaine head of the sydney hrsa. He has a large stock of speaker cloth and is very informative.

This is the distributor in stawell if your still in need of cloth we have the normal line, plus a few other types.