A Christmas Miracle If I Can Fix This 1937 Silvertone Radio!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- We're trying to keep some of the vintage electronics out of the landfill. Many times when something stops working, it can be repaired if someone will simply take the time to attempt to repair it. This channel documents our amateur attempts at repairing vintage electronics we think are cool.
We don't typically restore anything, we're just trying to get them working again. We've found that most of this stuff was well built and with a little help will start doing what it was intended to do.
Radio Repair
Phonograph Repair
Clock Repair
Projector Repair
That magic eye tube is awesome! Love it!
Looks like the same chassis I worked on; a year later. It was...an adventure. The gent I repaired it for finally saw it work again after nearly 60 years (his Dad gave it to him when he was 14). He did the cabinet, I volunteered to take care of the radio. The look on his face was priceless.
This one seems pretty well built!
Merry RadioMas 🎄
Amazing to watch this great old radio come back. So cool.
Sounding good! Just a quick note about that antenna coil. When you first showed the coil (~12:50), you can see a lighter band on the bottom of the paper sleeve, just above where the loose winding is sitting. That’s where the winding originally was. These coils are really transformers, with one winding inside the other. A lot of them used beeswax to hold the coils in place, although it doesn’t appear to have been the case here. It may be that the outer winding was originally snug enough to hold itself in place. In any case, you can use a bit of plain candle wax to do the same job. Just turn the chassis on its side, carefully move the winding back to where it should be, and melt a few drops of wax where the winding meets the sleeve. Hope this helps! (Sorry if you already know this.)
Skip the melting wax idea. I have used plain old white glue and gravity . You might have to temporarily use green
painters tape ( less sticky) to hold the coil winding in place while the glue dries.
...there used to be something called "coil dope": styrene dissolved in solvent...
...that's what I thought too, maury...
Great job! Don't forget about the resistor in the eye tube socket, it's typically around 1meg. When it drifts high, the sensitivity of the eye tube decreases.
Thanks for the info!
Omg I knew it from your voice that you have a brother named Donnie!!! I love yalls channels. ❤
Thanks for watching, Corey!
I believe in Crystal Christmas miracles good on you!
Wonderful, great work. Those domino resistors are beautiful. Thanks again Ronnie for 2024’s videos and very much looking forwards to many more across 2025. Happy Christmas to you all. Regards
Well done Ronnie! Great video.
The various inductors on the antenna input are to match the antennas impedance to the radios front end.
Merry Christmas Ron. Thankyou for making this and your other channel such wonderful content. Take care brother 👊🏼
Merry Christmas, Andy!
very cool. thanks Ron
Glad you enjoyed it
Merry Christmas Ron. Thankyou for spending time with this and your other channel and giving us something wonderful to view and be part of. Take care brother 👊🏼
You might have to change the name of this channel to “semi-pro repair time”….Great work Ronnie - it lives!!
I would never want to be a pro... one of the reasons i started this channel was because all of the know it all pros kept telling me I was doing it wrong, so I started a channel where I work on things that I don't know what I'm doing, so i'd get views from all the people who couldn't resist watching and telling me I was doing it wrong. It's worked out pretty good so far, lots of views and comments telling me I'm doing it wrong :)
@@AmateurRepairTime Man, I hope I’ve never come across as one of those guys! I only started playing with this stuff a few years ago myself, and just try to share what I think I’ve learned! In any case, you’re not doing it wrong, you’re learning! Doing it “wrong” would involve fire departments and emergency rooms! 😂
You’ll never have to worry about me telling you you’re doing it wrong. …I’m constantly amazed at your skills and knowledge. I can stay with you on the EM pinballs pretty good these days, but radios and clocks are a mystery to me. But I sure like watching you tackle them, and almost always get them up and running again….Outstanding!
Sears comes through again! It works after all this checking out. Nice bright eyetube glow too! Thanks was great to see.
Just replace the e- caps and all the wax paper caps and it will play all day long. Might be done at a later more convienent
time. Thanks for sharing it with us. Have a Merry Christmas Ronnie.
I replaced all the caps in the part of the video you skipped
@@AmateurRepairTime Found it at 37:00 in .
Let video run when I went to the bathroom! LOL
OK I found this channel and it is ruining me! I love what you are doing so I am getting a 1946 Philco Model 46 radio/record player to restore. Found the schematic for it also. You got me started on restoring old jukeboxes last year and I have restored 3 with 2 more to do. Great work and keep it up! I am in Charleston and next time I come that way I would love to stop by and see what you have!
Come on by! Part of the reason I do these channels is to inspire people to fix this stuff themselves, I can't do them all :)
Merry Christmas to my fellow Amateur Repair Time subscribers 👼
Merry Christmas 🎄📻🎅
You got a nice bright eye tube, that is a be plus.
"The snap of a few sparks, a quick whiff of ozone, and the lamp blazed forth in unparalleled glory." Ralphie
Fantastic! You saved another one. Can't wait to see this all done, and cleaned up.
That magic eye is awesome
It's certainly worth giving this radio 📻 a try!! I don't know if your resistors and capacitors will be naughty 😏 or nice. Ask Santa 🎅 for the "Naughty or Nice" box 📦 full of resistors and capacitors, and he'll put them under your Christmas 🎄 tree 🌳!! Merry Christmas 🎅 🎄 and a very safe and Happy New Year to ya. Best wishes 2025!! Your friend, Jeff!!
I don't recommend using anything less than a 450 volt cap in the power supply. It is likely that the mica caps are probably good, but I do recommend testing them for shorts. It is likely that most if not all of the dog bone resistors have gone way out of tolerance, at least that has been my experience with them. I'll guarantee that both the 10k 2 watt resistor and 25k 1 watt resistor are bad, I usually replace them with either 3 or 5 wat resistors as replacements. With the loose coils, ohm out the windings, if there is continuity, the coils are still good. The coils can be glued with something like a silicone sealer meant for fish tanks. Don't use regular RTV as that has acetic acid in it that is corrosive. The short wave bands are still alive, but you will need a good long wire antenna and a good ground for the radio to perform its best. Both your speaker field coil and the primary winding of the output transformer are good. I also add a fuse to the AC power input to be on the safe side just in case there is something seriously wrong with the power transformer or something else drawing excessive current somewhere else in the circuit.
Note the 6v6 power final in your radio. Those were everywhere back in the day. Tv's, even car radios. My favorite guitar amp output tube of all time. The different tubes do sound different depending on how they're used. If you find an rca black plate note the prices for them these days.
I re-capped a 50's guitar amp and left the metal can style multicap on top but bypassed it underneath with new caps - for aesthetics, (looks),. Seems that's common with folks doing restoration like you. I thought I was clever at the time, lol. Cool radio there. Merry Christmas all! Cheers. 👍
Thanks for watching! Yeah I always leave the can just looks cool 😄
@@AmateurRepairTime 👍👍
That tuning eye looks pretty bright still. May not have a lot of hours on it.
Can't say I've ever heard 'cool and 'sears' in the same sentence.
Something new everyday..........
You are really going to hate my channel, best to leave now because your elite, snobby attitude isn’t going to allow you to enjoy anything I’m capable of. Best to go find an expert, were amateurs over here and nowhere near as smart and cool as you, best run along somewhere where they’ll appreciate your boring, average, typical snark
@@AmateurRepairTimeYou tell em Ronnie..
@@AmateurRepairTime Seriously?
Wtf is this about?
I've been doing radio and TV repair most of my life. Not my first rodeo.
Growing up in the 60's and 70's sears was a common feature in school clothes and shoes that always were a little slow in the fashion department hence the comment. (you weren't a cool kid in Sears stuff)
For someone who is dependent on subscribers and views you may consider taking comments and such with a bit more levity and quit feeling like people are attacking you.
Or maybe medication, I dunno.
I'm not dependent on subscribers, or views and I think Sears is cool. You don't. You're not going to agree with me on anything so take your elite, full of yourself, cooler than everybody else know it all attitude somewhere else Scott.
The fact that you think I'm dependent on you, shows just how full of your anonymous self you are. If you leave, nobody will know. You are worthless, if your whole place is to criticize the stuff I repair. Go be very important somewhere else.
@naytc oh he told him all right buddyh2003
I just discovered and subscribed to your channel a few weeks ago. Great job. We’re kinda in the same boat. I have no formal training but I try to revive these beautiful radios as well. And I’m in Charlotte too. The WBT blowtorch is usually a good test. If it can’t pick that up there is a problem.
I only have one radio with a “Magic Eye” and it has a 1 Meg resistor in the eye socket base. Mine was a little high but I would do more damage to the socket trying to replace it than it was worth. Yours may have a resistor in it too. But if it ain’t broke don’t fix it…the tube looks great.
Merry Christmas and I hope you have a great 2025.
Steve
Thanks Steve, I'll look at that resistor... I'll subscribe to your channel too, that's cool you're here local! I have a store in downtown Rock Hill that we fix and repair arcade games, jukeboxes, and pinball machines in, if you're ever down that way stop in. We also sell vintage video games like Nintendo, etc. So I've always kind of been into anything old. Take care and Merry Christmas!
Thanks for the video. Have a great Christmas
Making a resistor list, checking it twice. Gonna find out which ones are naughty or nice?
...YOU BETCHER LIFESAVERS...(!)
Well done, you may get so good at this that you can do two per video. Luv your work 😊
What a cool radio! thanks for sharing.
It looks like L1, L2, L3 are all Air Transformers(Xfrmrs). You can follow their couplings by the number of windings (which are only symbolic to make tracing them easier.. I'm sure they are way more than just 4 windings or less for each Xfrmr).
L1 has only 4 Windings at that first "AM Broadcast" switch position that brings the signal into one of the coils at L1 and emits the signal over to the other L1 coil via magnetic Flux.. You can also see that L2's four winding pairs are selected at the same time because the switches are "ganged".
Switch to the next position and L1 is completely disconnected from the Antenna.. but the other half of L1 can still pass signal to that 1st tubes input from the 3 winding L2 Xfrmr. The Antenna comes in and is switched over to that 3 winding L2 Xfrmr for the 2nd switch position.. the way they have it drawn out can be confusing at first because we usually see Xfrmr pairs stay together/nearby, not clear across the schematic page.
But anyway.. L1 just one Xfrmr for that coil. The L2 winding bar you pointed at (the longer one) has three sets of air Xfrmrs as does the L3 coil bar.
It also appears to show that the variable air capacitors (those blades that turn when tuning) are ganged in a way to not only tune the bandwidth you need, but also controls the Oscillator.
The Oscillator follows the tuning so that the freq/band you desire is mixed with the osc. freq. This will create two extra signals.. the addtion of the two and the difference of them.. usually they will target the difference (Intermediate Freq. or I.F.) of them to create a signal much lower (63Khz for example) signal freq that is carrying the same audio you want to hear.
Then its simply a matter of filtering out everything except 63Khz or whatever your target freq is and then extract the audio from there.
This radio is a Super Hetrodyne I believe.
It will run again .
I inherited a late 1930s radio from my father. I believe there is a schematic on the bottom. I dont want to toss it, but i dont know what to do with it.
Don't scrap a rebuildable radio. Service information and replacement parts are available for a majority of the old radios. There is also plenty of information on the internet to help you do a good restoration.
The connection from L1 goes to the Grid input cap, not an Anode cap.
Luckily i didn't take that off
@AmateurRepairTime Grid caps tend to be low voltage. Anode caps tend to be high voltage. Not something you want to be touching while the set is turned on.
Thanks for your reply. 👍
I'd say you're on second base. You never said if the new tubes came in. You had a few clinkers.
The square mica capacitors rarely go bad, but... they can be produced in bad shape.
👍👍👍😎☕