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I picked up this J. B. Ferguson, New York, radio at a radio club auction some time ago.
It is quite an impressive radio to look at due to Ferguson’s extensive use of copper shielding.
It came pretty cheap, it scared most bidders off. Someone had started to disassemble it and finally gave up. Fortunately they were kind enough to pack up all the removed knobs, escutcheons etc. and place them inside the radio. I am not sure why they gave up, it could have been that the chassis refused to come out of the cabinet or because of the mess inside the cabinet.
This radio took the prize for the dirtiest radio I have worked on. I am used to animal effluent. Usually you can just brush it out and wash the radio down with strong detergent and hot water. I am not sure what animal lived in this radio but the effluent had spread out into a hard crust that defied water. It took a putty knife and sandpaper to remove it from some areas.
The chassis removed and the worst scraped off.
The copper shielding was in poor shape but was salvaged by sanding the crud off. Some areas were so badly etched that they could not be fully sanded clean due to their thickness. Anyways they came up looking much better and they did save the wood chassis frame from the worst of the effluent.
The cabinet needed extensive work and veneer replacement. The veneer inside the cabinet had swelled and that was what locked the chassis in place. One side was falling off and most glue joints needed regluing.
For those who are curious about the electronics. This is the chassis top with the copper removed.
And the chassis bottom.
This radio has three audio stages. The black audio transformer was okay but the two silver ones needed rewinding. They had a surprise inside, they were potted but contained a leaky paper/wax capacitor inside the can. First time I have seen this. The controls are tuning, coupling and volume outside and inside the cabinet is a switch for antenna coil taps and three terminals with a jumper marked L1, L2 and L3.
This radio is a sister to my Ferguson Eight.
Ed.
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