10 days since my last video…

Yikes! that’s far too long!

What’s the hold up? I’m waiting on:

• a schematic for the crappy Philco transistor clock radio I tore into. Probably not worth the $7 in the long run, but I’m going to do this one just because. Also NONE of the capacitors from c. 1967 seem to be available except NOS from eBay and I can’t figure out suitable modern replacements. I’m not sure the transistors are the issue, but I took the stupid things out, and I’m not sure how they go back in without the schematic. More rookie mistakes.
• a batch of the correct power transistors for my little Panasonic RX-FM16 boombox. This was another cheap Goodwill find, and of course the cassette player belts were liquified and gone. I got the belts done, got it all put back together, and it was dead. Determined the power transistor was bad, tried a “suitable replacement” Which as it turns out was not. It started going into this weird oscillation when the volume was turned up past a certain point. So, I’m still waiting on the correct ones to get here from, you guessed it, China. They should hopefully be here this week.
• I’m nearly finished with the case on the 1950 RCA 5×61. It’s sitting outside with the primer drying as I’m typing this. I 3d scanned the good corner, flipped it in software, printed a new one, trimmed it down, put it in place, and did the required “body work” to get it looking good. I mean, it’s not going to be 100% perfect, but its no longer cracked and busted out. I have a can of dark brown gloss to go on once I get the primer sanded out….
• And the Firestone. I got the hide glue that Zeke from Antique Radio Forums suggested, and I attempted to fix the first group of the stripes that shrunk out of place. Well, I guess I have to learn somewhere. They clamped into the curves just fine but then popped out of the adjacent flat area. Ugh. This one is going to take a lot of work, mostly learning on my part. All you pro-level wood workers and furniture restorer types can get a good chuckle out of my struggle I guess.
• I attempted to work on my Silvertone battery eliminator. I think its done, I just got cold feet with the selenium rectifier in there on the 1.5v circuit. I was getting a low voltage switching back and forth while trying to ramp up the power and wasn’t sure it was right. I’m gonna go send it and if it blows up, well, I guess that’s good content.
• I also recorded myself checking out a weird little 1990 vintage Casio “PDA” type of device I had lying next to my stack of old calculators. I guess I need to get that puppy edited and shipped. Trying to use that thing was nuts. But that’ll all be in the video I suppose.

I’ve been trying to NOT start new projects until these are finished. You know what happens when you try that. NOTHING gets done then. You just end up with more half finished projects, and I am living proof of this theory.

So these NEED to get DONE first. Then I’ll move along.

I’ve also made some choices about where I go from here in my “career” (lol)… It might be a struggle but honestly I don’t think it will be much worse than where I am right now.