There are a few restoration companies / services still in existence to bring your old audio equipment back to life. What does restoration mean? To most it means bring back equipment to it’s former glory. “Restore it to like new.” But what does the restorer do?
Good question, it depends on the person or company doing the restoration. It could mean replacing all capacitors(electrolytic, wax, etc.), lamps, alignment, new resistors, cleaning controls, etc., etc. You will pay dearly regardless of who does this work unless your having a friend or you do it yourself. What to expect? You will get it back and some companies even replace the missing silkscreen lettering missing on the face plate, or other cosmetic flaws like refinishing the wood cabinet, etc. Much of the internal components will be replaced with modern equivalents, since even NOS components are brand new but were still manufactured forty-fifty years ago and have aged. Switches and controls will be cleaned and De-Oxidized, lamps changed, etc. You will get it back and will pleasantly surprised with the appearance and performance(most of the time.) That feeling of happiness many times won’t last long. Sometimes you will receive your unit back with cosmetic damage that was not present when you brought your beloved component in. You will find strange imperfections in operation like dead spots on controls, one channel stronger then the other, strange smells or smoke and arcing, or it will stop working for no obvious reason. Or, just poor performance, worse then before restoration(most common of all issues) Why is this you ask? I will tell you why…it’s old. And all that is old will fail in time. But I had this restored a month ago, yes you did. And you remortgaged your house to do it. Sorry folks, there are still many parts that have not been replaced. Lets take switches and controls, over a half century much of the carbon has worn off or the metal has oxidized within the controls or switches so they fail, what about the thin string for a dial cord in your tuner or receiver, that snaps and it’s rare to ever have it replaced correctly, the new lamps draw more juice and melt the surrounding plastic lamp housings, or the thin wires in the transformers or coils separate or break, even the chassis oxidizes since it’s metal and it loses integrity with time. What am I getting at? Restoration is replacing the parts that are known to fail in the shortest period of time. But what about the “hard” parts that last a life time? This equipment is going on two or three life times so even the hard parts such as controls and other metal components start to fail. What does this mean? It means you better have a restoration service on speed dial, a friend who can fix this stuff, or have some skills to repair it yourself. It’s like the guy who brags and touts he has over 300,000 miles on his car. He forget to mention that he has had two or three motors, transmissions, new paint job, rear ends, etc, etc. And guess what? It never ends. Parts are still malfunctioning, next week it’s the air conditioning or heater coil, the next a power window motor or switch, or worse like a sun roof or trunk leak. And a lot of these talkers get 30 miles per gallon until you find out they never graduated elementary school and don’t have a grip on 3rd grade math, lol. Almost forgot, he or she brags the car is paid for, lol. Sure, 3X over.
What’s the point of this reminder? There really is no such thing as restoration, it’s a word or concept which is misleading. When we restore electronics, it means getting them to work the best they can considering the circumstances. It surely doesn’t mean new, or “like new.” It means working good for it’s age or usage. MOST restored electronics are on life support. Your basically waiting for the next malfunction or melt down. I restored a beautiful Browning Mk 4 Golden Eagle CB Base station. All capacitors, high resistors, lamps, crystal, etc. were replaced with new parts, and alignment. I turn it on and the on/off volume control fails, another time the RF gain control fails, again a meter fails, mode switch wafer switch, off frequency, power tube and audio tube failure which was replaced with NOS Tubes, etc. I did a full restoration on this two piece radio, that doesn’t mean change every switch, control, meter, tuning coil, etc. But…those parts break over time from heat and age also. Its my favorite of all time rig so I will keep fixing it as parts go South. If I had to depend on someone else’s shoddy work, or pay for every repair, I doubt this radio would still be sitting on my shelf… The real deal…Old equipment is Old equipment. It can be fixed for eternity as long as parts are available but could never be called new or “like new.” It will never be as dependable/reliable as when new unless every single part is new and within tolerance of the original.
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