emud: 60; Rekord-Senior

I just completed a restoration of my 3rd Emud Senior 60 radio. I couldn't resist the twenty-five dollar yard sale cost. It turned out to be the most challenging restoration I've done since I bought a radio that was in a flood and was full of silt.

Electronicaly, I knew there would be a power supply problem because someone had inserted a 20 amp AGC fuse in place of the .8 that should have been there. I guess they didn't have a penny to use! :) As usual the multielemet filter cap was bad but since someone just used larger and larger fuses the power transfomer was fried, The EZ80 tube socket was arced out, the contacts in the on/off switch were burnt off and the wires leading to it were burnt toaster wire. At is point I considered cannibalization!

Fortunately, I had an old transfrmer to replace the burnt unit. So I repcapped the radio, replaced the tube socket with a ceramic one and rewired. But what to do about the on/off switch? I hated the idea of adding an external switch or inline; so I added an "L" bracket on the inside of the back of the chassis with a long lever microswitch; the lever positioned directly behind the sliding wafer board that use to hold the power contacts. There is just enough of the board protruding from the back of the push button assembly to depress the lever when the power button is actuated.

I'm happy that I didn't scrap the unit, as it turned out, I stripped off the cracked and flaking old black finish revealing a great oak veneer. Lightly sanding it and adding one coat of golden oak stain with three coats of Tung oil, the case is beautiful and the sensitivity and sound are the best of the three I have.

I wanted to share this exerience with those who may just be starting out in restoration of these great old radios. Don't get discouraged and don't be afraid to re-engineer around a problem. Once you get them back to specs they sound really great and you'll hate to turn them off and go to the next project!

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