Recently bought the remains of a wartime utility receiver. I have the chassis and loudspeaker but no cabinet.
The radio cabinet is of simple design and will be easy to replicate, far easier to make compared with the Baird T5 and the Ferguson 991T cabinets I'm still working on.
Another lockdown project. At the time of writing this the cabinet sides and top and bottom panels have been made so the front panel is the next part to make. The front consists of thee parts, the control panel, the loudspeaker baffle and a strip of plywood at the top.
The cabinet side panels and radio chassis.
Test assembly.
Picture of a damaged set showing the method of construction.
Gleaned a lot of useful assembly information from this picture.
Till Eulenspiegel.
I've got a couple of these sets if you need any help with cabinet measurements ect. I've been reading about them in old newspapers just recently. They were called "The set without a name" in some adverts in 1944 when became available. £12 3s 4d for the mains version and £10 19s for the battery version including purchase tax. The aim was to make 170,000 mains versions and 75,000 battery versions.
Hi jcd, some help would really be appreciated. I'm needing the measurements of the front control panel and also the loudspeaker baffle. Using pictures of the set I've worked out by scale factor the control panel is likely to be six and a half inches high. Better still if the precise figures can be determined.
This picture of a similar set was found on the net.
Till Eulenspiegel.
@till I'll take measurements tomorrow and let you know what they are. The ones I've got are slightly different to each other as they are made by different manufacturers. I've put picture of them on the FB site.
Meanwhile, I've carried out an alteration to the cabinet bottom panel. A rebate will be cut out on the bottom inner side of the front control panel so that the join between the two panels will be on the under side of the bottom panel.
Till Eulenspiegel.
@till The measurements I've taken for the control panel are; 6 and 3/16 inches high and 3/16 of an inch thick. I can't tell you the width as the bottom feet cover that area but the small panel above the speaker is 8 1/2 inches wide and 1 and 3/16 inches high and 3/16 of an inch thick. The speaker cloth area is 5 and 1/2 inches high and 7 and 10/16 inches wide. I hope all that makes sense and is of some help and I look forward to the seeing the end result.
One of our members @wartimesounds who rarely visits and has never posted here, has a very good site covering these civilian utility receivers. In his absence, I will point you to his fine website https://www.wartimesounds.co.uk/ It's worth a visit as there's all manner of useful info including period modifications and cct's.
Thank you for the very kind words and for pointing out my website and glad you enjoyed it.
Peter (AKA Wartime Sounds)
Crustytv.
Thank you for the very kind words and for pointing out my website and glad you enjoyed it.
Till Eulenspiegel.
As has been said already, although they were made to a set standard (British Radio Cabinet Makers’ Association with Eden Minns the designer) each manufacturer made the receiver very slightly differently, mainly the quality and finish of the wood used. If it helps I will get the sizes for you and post you a reply.
Kind regards
Peter
With the valuable information from jddaze work can continue with the construction of the cabinet.
Today the cabinet base was clamped and glued into position. The thin wood strip made and fitted and later today or tomorrow the control panel will be made.
But the truth is this will not be the final cabinet to house the U20 chassis. The plywood I'm using is of poor quality and is proving to difficult work with. Strange, the same material was absolutely fine for the replica Ferguson 991T cabinet and that was a much more complicated affair.
The pictures on Peter's Wartimesounds website have been very helpful also.
Picture of todays work.
Till Eulenspiegel.
The plywood I'm using is of poor quality and is proving to difficult work with.
Yet somehow that seems appropriate given the set and the period. You should see the inside of some of the early post-war Murphy and Bush cabinets, which really do have the air of salvaged wood.
For information, the Controlled Commodity Mark was used for certain items from 1941 to 1952. Clothing, furniture and I presume this radio which was introduced around 1944.
Controlled Commodity 41 logo. Although I was born just after the war I remember it in clothes and furniture. Items were referred as Utility products.
I've noticed the finish of the wood varies a lot on these, I guess due to the number of different manufacturers involved & possibly due to owners re-varnishing them over the years.
Todays work involved making another side panel for the radio. The first one had developed a split caused by excessive pressure from the clamps used for assembly. I'll be more careful next time, but it is poor quality plywood.
A front panel has been cut to size. Tomorrow the cut-out for the tuning scale will be made.
It'll be noticed that the loudspeaker baffle cloth is positioned slightly proud from the front panel. Again, I must thank Peter for posting up cabinet construction details on the wartimesounds website. Now it will be possible to incorporate that particular detail into the new cabinet.
This might be a small radio cabinet but I've spent more time on making it than it took to make the new cabinet for a Ferguson 991T 14" TV set.
Till Eulenspiegel.
The workshop is too cold to do any serious work on the cabinet.
The holes for the front controls have been drilled out. Seems that the plywood is too thick, the control shafts don't protrude out far enough. A panel made with thinner plywood will have to be made. Or alternatively the plywood in front of the scale plate can be routed out so that the chassis can be moved forward by 3.5mm or so.
Till Eulenspiegel.
Rather than fiddling about with present front panel it'll be much easier to make another panel with thinner plywood. This was done two days ago. Now the front control shafts protrude 10mm or so which hopefully will be OK. The hole for the tuning scale has been cut out and the edges chamfered with a router tool. Not so easy because the guide wheel on tool extends beyond the cutting edges. In order the router tool can be used wood strips were pinned around the inside of the scale aperture.
I can announce the procedure was a success which comes as a pleasant surprise considering the troubles I've experienced with this project.
Till Eulenspiegel.
At last it's beginning to resemble a wartime civilian radio receiver.
Close up of the chamfered tuning scale aperture.
Till Eulenspiegel.
To assess how the finished cabinet will look two pieces of 7mm plywood have been pinned into position at each side of the front panel. The loudspeaker has a frame diameter of six and a half inches and the cutout in the baffle will have a diameter of five and a half inches. Yesterday evening the baffle board was cut to size, 7mm plywood was used for this.
The console TV set behind the radio cabinet is a Defiant TR1252. The set has a five valve radio receiver which is apart from sharing the loudspeaker completely separate from the TV circuits. No TV-radio switching is employed.
Till Eulenspiegel.
Nice work on the cabinet so far! I've just bought myself one of these radio's, always fancied one, but never got round to actively getting one. Hopefully it'll be here later this week, it's got U7 stamped on it, which I believe is Murphy, quite funny as I've been working on quite a bit of Murphy stuff recently!
Regards,
lloyd