Bendix 0626-A radio

[electra225]

Circa 1946, this was my grandmother's radio. She turned it on in the morning after she put her teeth in, then it ran all day, listening to Bouncin' Bill Baker until suppertime. Grandpa didn't want the radio on during supper, since he thought this was a time for the family to talk. You may notice a chunk that has been glued above the right end of the dial. The story goes that I was "being a bad boy" when I picked up a jar of Pacquin's hand cream and chucked it towards grandma's radio. The radio sat on a sideboard in the kitchen up to that time. After the hand cream incident, it went up on top of the refrigerator so your truly couldn't mess with it. It sat there until grandma passed. A piece of Scotch tape secured the broken chunk until I got the radio. I epoxied the back side so I wouldn't lose it. With the exception of tubes, and maybe one capacitor, this radio is untouched electronically. I believe it should be recapped, but it works so well, I'm hesitant to mess with it. All the tubes are RCA with exception of the 35Y4 Sylvania rectifier. Cousin Calvin was an RCA dealer, hence all the RCA tubes. You may also notice the black tape holding the output transformer to the speaker. I don't remember how that happened, but my guess would be that my stepdad replaced the speaker and was short a wire tie to secure it properly. May have been one of those "we'll fix that later" deals. I've had this radio since 1984. This radio is a six-tuber with a tuned RF stage, so it is a robust performer. The audio could be better, tone-wise. A recap might cure that.

[TC Chris]

Is that dial glass painted on both sides to give a 3-D effect?

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

I don't know. I didn't think to look when I had the chassis out.

I'm trying to decide whether I want to fix and repaint the cabinet or not. There are some cracks that should be stabilized, if nothing else. It has always looked this bad since I can remember. Would restoring it ruin its value as a family heirloom? Grandma remarked how that she and that old radio were a lot alike. Didn't look like much, but still worked good.

[TC Chris]

I don't know. I didn't think to look when I had the chassis out.

I'm trying to decide whether I want to fix and repaint the cabinet or not. There are some cracks that should be stabilized, if nothing else. It has always looked this bad since I can remember. Would restoring it ruin its value as a family heirloom? Grandma remarked how that she and that old radio were a lot alike. Didn't look like much, but still worked good.

A quick filler-and-spray-paint job would improve the looks, and it would still be Grandma's radio. Kitchen radios had tough lives because of the grease. My first Zenith G-725 was from a kitchen. Granny snagged it for me when the family she worked for was throwing it away. The round plated-steel dial scale was really beat up. The grease dissolved the painted frequency numbers and it was spotted with rust. I painted the ring gold and used press-on numbers. OK, not exactly original, but it looks appropriate. Good enough to go out in public.....

By the way, let's have a cultural detour here. Elsewhere I posted about my Delco conversion. That radio was from Grandma and Grandpa's house. It was in the bathroom upstairs in Cadillac, MI and I'm pretty sure Grandpa listened to the morning news while he was shaving. Then I had the other GPs, who were Granny and Granddaddy. They were the southern relatives from AL. I always felt lucky to have a Grandma and a Granny.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

Then do I paint it refrigerator white like it is, or can I use my imagination and spruce it up a bit? Grandma didn't like being "showy".

[William]

If you want to hang on to Grandma's memory, let your conscience be your guide. Otherwise have fun with it.

Bill

[Firedome]

Me, I'd leave it be, it's part of it's history, and a reminder that we can all be idiots at times, a reminder that I need frequently lol.

[electra225]

The story goes that I was three when I chucked the Pacquin's jar at the radio. Pacquins came in a thick glass jar. Grandpa used to collect those jars to store bench junk like nuts and screws in. He would nail the lids to a 2X4 then screw the jar to the lid. They were heavy, sturdy jars. And they would play the dickens with a bakelite radio cabinet.

The wife suggested that I hotrod the cabinet, since grandma wasn't much on color. The wife was always trying to get her to be a little fancier. She suggests two tone dark brown and refrigerator white. Outside of chipped paint, the only cabinet damage is where the glass jar hit it. I'd probably sand it well, spray a couple coats of sanding sealer, then a couple coats of primer, then a good wet sand, followed by color. The cord is dark brown, but somebody put a black plug on it. I think I have a dark brown plug around here someplace.

This old radio was not subject to kitchen grease, and has none on it. The refrigerator sat in "the pass-through" which was a little odd-shaped room where the four buildings put together to make the house came together. An old summer kitchen, a loafing shed, an old church house and another donated building were horse-drawn to where they were put together. Grandpa and his dad added the upper story. So the pass through was where the stairs went. And the refrigerator and telephone were in there. They dug a basement under the house later and added the Iron Fireman coal furnace and stoker. The basement had a river rock floor, mortared to be fairly smooth. It was insulated with sawdust from Uncle Fort's sawmill. A bathroom was built and plumbing installed in 1962. It wasn't fancy, nothing was square and it looked rather rustic. I was raised in that old house. It still exists. My second cousin owns it. Nobody has lived there since 2006. The kitchen cabinets were ammunition boxes nailed to the studs, with homemade curtains on a rod used for "doors" on the cabinets. There was a pitcher pump in the sink for water. The drain water from the sink ran thru the wall to grandma's flower bed outside.

[Firedome]

That radio might need some Bondo work to smooth it out prior to painting... I love the smell of Bondo!
It adheres to Bakelite very well!

[electra225]

I just figured every body would assume I had used filler of some kind on the damaged area. It has already had epoxy put on the inside, and the crack is smooth, so very little filler will be needed. There is a tiny crack on the edge of the dial area that I need to stabilize from the back yet,