Alan's RCA 29K Restoration - August 2004

Alan contacted me with fond memories of operating this radio in his grandparent's basement. Read his perspective on his website. I told him it was a good thing the power cord was frayed. He assured me it hadn't been powered on for quite a long time. I began rubbing my hands together but had no idea of exactly how sweet this would be. What a thrill to work on a Radio that is in as good as shape as this RCA 29K! After the last two I've seen this one looks like someone in 1942 put this set in a time machine and set the dial for 2004. Let me show you what I mean...

To begin with...after I blew the (very light) covering of dust off...


I noticed that the color coding was still visible on the preset tuning capacitors.

Also notice the red seal on the IF transformers, this unit is still aligned as it was from the factory.

...I stood back and began to realize this radio was not only not used very much, but was kept in environmental heaven for the components and materials of this old gal... Removal of the chassis continued to amaze me of her condition.

Both previous models I have restored, the wiring was all shot. This radio has the same rubber insulated solid wire but the insulation is not deteriorated nearly as much as the others. One difference is the B+ wiring (red) is cloth covered wire. All the cloth covered wiring is in excelent shape, both under the chassis and the external antenna and speaker wires. There are a few wires that will need replacing due to the rubber insulation being too closely routed to a tube socket pin that caused it to melt.

As far as the components, the most amazing thing to me, beyond all the capacitors being original, was the 470 ohm cathode resistor on the audio amplifier still has the color coding looking fresh (well OK, the purple has turned sort of grey.) The other ones I've seen had been heated not only to the point of burning the paint, but the resistor was brittle. This one is still flexible and clean. None of the black mica capacitors are cracked as in the others.

The filter capacitors, even after slowly conditioning them, do show some leakage but that is to be expected. I will replace them anyway but leave the original on the chassis. The interesting thing with the tubes was all the RCA tubes showed weakness, the Philco tubes (6SQ7's) were strong.
(Doesn't say much for who built this radio.)

The results of testing the tubes, transformer and capacitors...


More to come...