Barbie Pink Sears Silvertone Model 8027 Late Fifties Early Sixties. Needing lots of love!
If the Bulova clock radio lived in a Park Ave penthouse back in the fifties. And, the Motorola found a home in the well-to-do suburbs. And, the Philco wound up in a posh Victorian on Main St. And, the Travler or Truetone went to Hollywood...
This Barbie Pink Silvertone ended up in a trailer by the town dump. It looked like it was in a garage for the last 50 years. The inside was covered in a black oily silt. The front clear bezel looked like something corrosive had seeped inside. The interior clock, date, and calendar mechanism was frozen in place with melted plastic.
This clock radio came to me in rather sad condition (ranked in order from more difficulty to less difficulty to fix):
1. Clock face paint flaking off
2. Chip on front top edge
3. Front clock bezel hazy
4. Radio and clock don't work
5. Frazzled power cord
6. Gold metal center cap missing off volume knob
7. Dirty and oily, with obnoxious sticky stuff all over it.
8. Broken tube. 50C5 amplifier tube. Have tons of these.
9. Small hairline inclusion crack on top, barely noticeable. Does not continue edge to edge.
10. Blown dial lamp
On the plus side (Ranked in order of my personal preference. 1=highest):
1. Original. Unmodified.
2. Cool rare design. Angular cacophony of levels, separate sections for clock and radio functions. Somewhat low and sleek looking even.
3. Mid-century design motifs abound
4. Funky color. A rich vibrant pink, almost hot pink. Not powder or pastel pink. Like Crayola Carnation Pink. This model also came in ivory and brown.
5. No missing pieces
6. Even more rare: Date and Calendar!
The first thing I see is the flaking clock face. Relatively speaking, this is the most unusual flaw. Don't see this defect often. What would cause this to happen?
On the hierarchy list of difficulty, restoring a clock dial face with original or original-looking graphics is higher up than cracked or chipped cabinets. Thankfully, we have a graphic designer on staff (my wife) who has expertise in typographic and iconographic reproduction.
The chip didn't make me happy but it was small and fixable.
The power cord was in pitiful condition as well. Strange place for power cord to come unraveled. Easy to replace.
The mysteries behind this clock radio's downfall continue. Like, this 50C5 amplifier tube was rattling around the cage when I opened the box.
Fortunately, I have plenty of spares.
The circuit board was cruddy, oily, sticky, but original and intact. Double sided circuit board though, which I loathe.
This circuit used a standard metal canister electrolytic filter capacitor which are more reliable than the paper and wax variety. It uses 70uf and 30uf. The metal canister is actually part of the circuit. So, if you're replacing one of these with discrete capacitors, you need to tie the ground points together or the ground circuit will be broken.
This circuit also features a surface mount tuning capacitor. The tuning knob is direct shaft adjustment of the capacitor plates. After a period normal use back and forth motion, the tuning capacitor metal block mount connection starts to fatigue and the circuit is broken. I resoldered these connection points.
This radio uses two pentode 6BJ6 preamp tubes instead of the normal single 12BA6. I turned the radio on and no glow. Turns out, the radio had a bad rectifier tube 35W4. After I replaced that, the radio came on and sounded great!
Video of radio working on YouTube here: http://youtu.be/EJAuVAdgNtc
Next, the fun part. Fixing that chip on the front edge. I decide not to fill and repaint the small hairline crack on the top. Instead, I will just reinforce it from below. Can't hardly see it? It's right in the middle of the flat top section but doesn't continue to the edges.
Finally, replace blown dial lamp.
Here is the end result. Nice!
Here is the link to buy it:
For Ken, here's a few suggestions (as of Feb 2, 2015):
IMMACULATE AQUA Retro Jetsons 1964 Admiral Radio Model Y3149 "Celebrity" Tube AM Clock Radio WORKS!
MINT GREEN Retro Jetsons 1959 Admiral Model 298 Tube AM Clock Radio WORKS!
CHALFONTE Blue Retro Jetsons Late 50's early 60's Truetone D2801 Tube AM Clock Radio WORKS!
Here's a mention about photography. It takes a good amount of work to photograph these old radios in the right light to accurately display color characteristics, blemishes, repairs and repaint work, if applicable. In my opinion, the best light for these old radios is natural lighting particularly at certain times of the day. In Oregon, this is no small challenge because it's cloudy 40% of the year. There's even less sunlight during rainy season which is typically from September to June (not joking). So, when it's sunny during the right time of day, it's pretty urgent matter for me to get pictures taken quickly.
This old girl turned out to be an endeavor to photograph. Usually pink is easy for me. However, I couldn't capture this one easily. In bight light at the right time of the day, with sunshine, this radio looks pale pink-ish and the clear bezel looks more yellow than it actually is. On a cloudy day (much more common in Oregon), it looks hot-pinkish. See for yourself:
On sunny day at peak time facing the sun:
On cloudy day at peak time facing away from the sun:
Compare these with the first picture above which was taken on workbench with household fluorescent type bulb light, that one looks pastel pink. Go figure. It's like looking at the Portrait of Dorian Gray.