30 Days of Creativity - #26

Fixing Up a "Vintage" Stereo

My daughter bought a Wards portable stereo record player at an estate sale for $20. It is very similar to the 1964 GE 300 pictured at antiqueradios.com, so I m guessing it is from the same era. We tested it and it played pretty well. Talk about fun! Hearing some of my old albums after decades (yes decades) was just fantastic.

Figure 1. Circa 1960's Wards Airline Stereophonic Record player

There is a problem. Every so often one of the channels cuts out. Sometimes it's the left, sometimes it's the right—only when playing records. The radio never has this problem. Besides that, there were some cosmetic issues.

I was able to do the following:

(1) Replaced a stripped screw in the top handle so it can actually be carried by the handle now.
(2) Glued some loose grill cloth back in place on one of the speakers.
(3) Made new foot (one was missing) out of a new rubber foot. Sawed the new foot to the proper height using a hack saw.
(4) Glued on a piece of the vinyl covered chip board that had been knocked loose from one corner.
(5) Opened the electronics bay and sprayed some electronics cleaner into the pots and switches on the outside chance that dirt was causing the intermittent channel signal loss.

Figure 2. It's solid state man!

Figures 1 and 2 show this unit after those repairs. It still cuts out once in awhile. Quickly flipping between the radio and phono modes using the front panel switch will sometimes jolt it back into normal operation. One of these days I will delve deeper into the electronics. I still think there is a good a chance a more thorough cleaning will solve the problem.



Next Day
Previous Day