General Electric E50 Restoration Project

The radio's filter capacitors had previously been replaced. Nevertheless, old capacitors need replacing. The filters and the frayed cord were replaced. As the chassis was cleaned up, I noticed that the radio had all of its original GE tubes! It is probably not common to find radios still complete with their original tube lineup or of the same brand, so this GE was probably used for a short time.

To avoid replacing the speaker or reconing the whole thing, a piece of drawing paper was cut out and painted dark gray. The paper was shaped over the remaining speaker cone and glued on. Afterwards, I had trouble getting the dial back over the speaker and ended up breaking the old pointer. To replace the pointer, a paper clip was unfolded and hammered to a thinner and flatter shape. This new dial pointer was dipped in black paint, varnished, then mounted on the slide-rule dial. Afterwards, the ratty dial string was replaced with fishing line.

The radio was fired up but hummed. Of course, most radio problems are due to old wax paper capacitors. Usually it is best to give radios a full recap, but at the time I was cost-conscious and only wanted to replace the filter capacitors. The only result after a full recap was a decrease in hum noise. The grid caps of the tubes were tapped with my finger and the 6A8 oscillator tube did not produce an audible change, which indicated that the 6A8 may be defective. The radio finally picked up some stations after the 6A8 was replaced but not very well.

The resistors were checked and one resistor was way off. The radio played perfectly after the resistor was replaced. The power transformer was sanded down to remove the imperfections due to rust then the surface was repainted black.

The cabinet was stripped. It only took a hour, which was probably because the whole radio may have been wet at some time and allowed the paint to strip off easily. The original colors on the wood were orange and black, which I thought was rather unappealing so the cabinet was stained with redwood.