Cabinet restoration & mechanical repairs

Author: Edgardo Castro Bruse


Having restored a 738 Silver Marshall Short Wave Converter from ground up, and after enjoying shortwave listening with it, I decided to venture into the world of the shortwave converters. Some time, in October of 2007, I bought a Stewart-Warner 301-A shortwave converter that looked like the perfect subject for restoration. The converter looked like shown in photos: (Click images to enlarge)




Cabinet restoration

Firstly, since the cabinet's bottom was falling apart, I removed it and re-glued it. Secondly I removed the old varnish by appling strips of Scotch Tape to the wood. Then by lifting these strips some varnish was removed easily. I removed the rest of it with sand paper.

Finally I polished the cabinet with very fine sand paper and applied tint with a soft cloth. Process is shown below. (Click images to enlarge)



Mechanical repairs

The first problem was that the vernier system did not work, because the rubber cylinders that move the large toothed wheels were petrified and cracked.

To remedy this situation I disassembled completely the mechanism, and applied plenty of teflon tape to both rubber cylinders. Then when I tested the mechanism the large toothed wheels made the appropiate grooves on their respective teflon covered cylinder.
The repair is holding well untill now Jan 2010.