More broken bakelite radio cabinets

[TC Chris]

Does your label0making guy fill in missing parts if you have a mostly-intact photo?

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

Yes. He is pretty good at using his imagination. I give him the basic concept of what I need and he does the rest. He does it on a computer program of some kind. He can draw something, scan it, then his computer program can clean up and reproduce his drawing. The guy is seriously good at what he does and his prices are more than reasonable. I couldn't buy a CAD program, and have to deal with a computer for what he charges. I realize he can't make a living doing decals for me, but he takes my projects seriously, even though he uses them for "fill in" projects. One of his biggest income streams is from T-shirt sales. He is at all the local car shows, selling T-shirts.

Here are better pictures of the RCA cabinet. All it needs is a new back and one brown knob.

[hermitcrab]

That looks great, nice job!... I had a philco bakelite phono/radio that someone smatched the lid to smithereens so I ended up parting it out, that was some thick bakelite... out of all the radios I had , it seemed like the bakelites were the easiest to sell ... the wooden ones not so much.

[electra225]

You can pretty much use your imagination when you are working with a broken bakelite cabinet. This one is not perfect, but is eons better than it was. Sometimes making it better than it was is all you can do. I had a spare bezel that I polished and clear coated. This beat-up old radio still had a pointer that was totally intact. Most of them have one of the round halves of the pointer gone.

[TC Chris]

Wow! Put that on in the living room!

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

Thanks, Chris. I have four of these big RCA radios. Two wooden, two bakelite. They are fairly large as far as table radios are concerned. They are heavy due to their robust construction, and transformer power supplies, so they don't work well on shelves. The wife is not impressed with them, so they don't go into the house. I have them on top of a cabinet in the shop. I'd like to have a better place to display them, along with the little bakelite 45 changer I redid.

I thought the "Vintage Blush" I used on the front panel was a tad too pink when I first applied it. Now that the trim is on and everything is together, I find it the almost perfect color. For some reason, I got the tape lines pretty much right on. I used Frog Tape on this project. That stuff is expensive, but worth its weight in gold on a project like this. Frog Tape's main claim to fame is that it doesn't let paint ooze in under the tape, making the tape line wonky. Frog Tape is also made to use with fresh paint. It won't lift dry paint and you can usually peel the tape off while the paint is still wet.

I have a Stromberg-Carlson 1500-H radio that is a wonderful performer, but the bakelite cabinet is dull. I'm thinking about painting it as close to Lido Lavendar (Evening Orchid, Laurel Mist, Lavendar Mist Metallic, et al) as possible and black. This is one of those sets with the wrap-around grille that goes all the way around both sides of the cabinet. I'd paint the main cabinet with Lavendar, then use black on the grille. I have a little Trav-Ler set that has a badly chipped painted bakelite cabinet. I think it is going to be Allis Chalmers orange, two-toned with a yet-to-be-determined contrasting color. I can get that paint in a spray bomb at Tractor Supply. The Airline cabinet is going to be a real deep burgundy with the Vintage Blush as the two tone.

[Hi-Fi-Mogul]

Great results with the RCA, Greg.
You do nice work always.

I had one of these in the mahogany wood cabinet.

It sounded great, and there was a factory phono input
jack for a changer.
Selector knob, if I remember was for AM/FM/Phono

Yes, not a lightweight unit.

[electra225]

Thanks, HFM. I want to use the RCA bakelite radio I just redid with my RCA bakelite 45 changer.