Philco Chairside Radio Misc Page
Intro:  I was given a Philco 38-7 radio by a ham radio club member/friend.  The cabinet was pretty rough with veneer peeling off and lots of water damage... but no chips or broken off veneer.  I spent one warm summer gluing it back together and then refinishing it.  I have received a lot of positive comments on the before n after of how my cabinet came out.  I can humbly say that it is my best work so far and it looks very neat-o in the living room of my 1940 house.

The chassis spent almost two years on my bench cuz I was having a hard time with the tuning mechanism.  As described below,,, the universal joint that connects the tuning capacitor assembly to the dial mechanism was damaged in a way that was hard for me to repair.  I enlisted another ham club friend, Pete, who has more patience than me... and lots of experience repairing Vibroplex Bug telegraph keys... and so is very meticulous.  This repair is described below as a caption.

Mr bandersontv, a Youtube contributor, that I watch a lot of,  has videos of the restoration of his 38-7 cabinet, and asked for folks to chime in regarding how the radio goes back in the cabinet.  So, because of that... the birth of this webpage happened.

I have a (not very good) video of my 38-7 on Youtube...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMcwqNG9T4Y

I had many more fotos and lots of inspiration to create a helpful webpage of this 38-7 restoration project... but complacency on my part (not Murphy) ended up with a crashed hard drive with no back up files.  The fotos below were found in my camera, another not much used PC, and just taken to get this far.

Hopefully this page is helpful to the fortunate Philco 38-7 radio restorers who have one of the these rare radios (approx 7000 made).
 


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This view is thru the removable access panel (tube replacement)  that mounts vertically above the lower table and the table top.

This image is to show how the radio mounts into the cabinet.   My radio came to me assembled.  At first it was confusing how to get the chassis out. First thing was to sit the radio on its back side on a piece of carpet.  Then  I removed the screws from the plywood helper shelf (x in the foto) that go thru into the radio chassis... there are two circular rubber pads/bumpers between the shelf and the chassis.  Then I removed the plywood helper shelf from the cabinet.  The screws that secure the helper shelf to the radio cabinet were hard to notice... they remove from under the shelf.

The radio chassis is supported from its bottom lying on the back of the radio cabinet.  Then I removed the two large bolts from the dial assembly mounting flange... and then a big 1/4" screw that passes  thru  the L shaped bracket that is part of the chassis.  The L bracket is shown above on the top right side of the foto.

Problem:  the annotation in the foto above sez that there are two L tabs on the chassis.  WRONG!!... there is only one, the one you see in this foto.
 
The x in the photo shows where/how the wood screws screw up thru the cabinet into the plywood helper shelf.

Here's an afterthought I had regarding the helper shelf.  It would be good to hole-saw a couple of 1" holes in the shelf to allow for more air flow via convection from the bottom (speaker) cavity of the radio out thru the U shaped cutout in the access piece of plywood that covers this view.  FWIW... kr7w.
 
Maybe a little more clarity here looking inside of the cabinet thru the tube access opening.
 
Restoration fotos on the bench here and below.
 
Note the joint that connects the tuning capacitor gears to the Counterweight to the Dial Mechanism.  My radio's joint was rotten and crumbling away.  The tuning capacitor was also frozen.  Careful dis-assembly and some WD-40 and heat finally unfroze the tuning cap.  My friend Pete made me a new joint (or Rag Joint as I've heard them called in auto mechanic circles)...out of some rubber material reinforced with fabric that is used in cars to direct the flow of air into the radiator.

Careful adjustment of the dial mechanism axel  where it connects to the rag joint is needed... otherwise the counterweight will hang down too low when the radio is in the cabinet... if too low, then the counterweight hits the metal dial assembly support piece.  It is easy to be fooled cuz the radio dial will work on the bench, but when rotated 90 degrees in the cabinet... gravity wins out.
 
Another view...
 
Another view of the 'mounting in the cabinet' places.   I replaced the FELT gasket that eliminates the space between the dial bezel and the cabinet dial eschuscion (sp?)  when looking down at the dial after the radio is assembled in the cabinet (the typical user position)...  I obtained some 12x12" felt pieces from JoAnn Fabrics in their hobby section.  They were about $1.  I experimented with black and brown.  either will work because when the radio is assembled... this is hardly noticeable... however, if the felt is left out... then the user may see some tube glow in a dark room.

Note the arrows M.  This is the MUTE wire.  I was fooled by the MUTE feature of this radio.  Philco's idea was to have the user mute the audio when tuning between stations.  The user pulled out the suicide tuning knob and rotated the dial.  This eliminated the static between stations and sounds of unwanted stations between the previous station and the next station.  This mechanism is part of the Philco CONE-CENTRIC tuning mechanism.  Click HERE:  http://www.philcorepairbench.com/conecentric/index.htm  for Lots O infO.

Anyways... I spent a lot of time troubleshooting the lack of audio output... I lifted the MUTE wire from the audio circuit and then volume appeared.  When I listen to my Chairside... I sometimes bump the suicide tuning knob and cause the radio to mute... A small bit of panic sets in until I remember about this super cool feature.

My Chairside radio does not have the CONES installed in the dial... so no joy of Conecentric Tuning.
 
 
Upper left corner of the chassis is an old Philco gizmo:  The bakelite block capacitor.  I took this block apart and installed the standard restorers yellow polystyrene caps inside.   Note the XX.  This is one of one mounting tabs that secure the chassis to the radio cabinet.
 
A few Youtube viewers have asked me about the dial illumination (dial light)... and how to change the light.  Mostly I don't know... but I can assume that the bulb is changed from the front / top side of the radio.... otherwise the Philco repairman would have a huge job to perform to remove the chassis, etc... to simply remove the bulb from the rear.  During my restoration... I did NOT take the dial apart much.  Only to remove the glass bezel to Windex it.  I am imagining removing the dial indicator pointer and then the plastic dial plate to get to the bulb.  Maybe someone can enlighten me about this.

Best Regards,,,599kr7w
 
 
 
The END is HERE