Sparton 270 Restoration

[Gerry O’Hara]

Just completd restoring a Spaton Model 270 dating from 1931. Its an early superhet and perfoms very well The chassis has been entirely re-capped (though many of the paper capacitors were found to be serviceable), a couple of resistors had gone high in valueand were replaced and a tube was changed-out. The cabinet had a badly damaged top (photo), but the remainder of the cabinet was in fairly good condition, so I re-finished the top and only lightly rubbed the remainder of the cabinet down with steel wool. Finished the entire cabinet in several coats of walnut-tinted/two coats of clear semi-gloss lacquer. The original speaker cloth was very faded and was replaced with one of similar tones. The set looks and plays great in our lounge. Thanks to the Society for Preservation of Antique Radio in Canada (SPARC) for use of their spray booth facility in the restoration of this radio.

Gerry

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[Radio Nut]

Gerry that sure looks nice. Did it take you long. Bruce

[Gerry O’Hara]

Hi Bruce,

Not too long – probably a total of around 12 hours for the cabinet (spread over several weeks going to SPARC) and a few evenings at home working on the chassis – most time-consuming thing was cleaning off the grime on the chassis. An interesting thing here is that the tuning mechanism is a simple pinion/quadrant gear and the bearings had gone a bit loose. I added a drop of high-viscosity lubricat (Rocol ‘Kilopoise’) and now its as smooth as silk – not a hint of roughness.

Gerry

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