The cabinet is stripped,mainly with acetone and some lacquer thinner.



I will repair this by overlapping a slightly over-sized piece of new veneer with matching grain, using yellow wood glue, and clamping tightly (using a block of wood and wax paper). I will then sand down the parts of the repair piece which overlap the existing veneer. I used Mohawk wood epoxy, walnut color, on the cracks, and have the loose substrate veneer layers glued and clamped.



Likewise for this chip on the back


I took care to save the cabinetmaker's decal, cleaning around it with a rag and cotton swabs


The remote stripped, with a corner chip in the back which will be repaired

Glue repairs to the remote control cabinet underway:


The over-sized veneer repair piece clamped to the top of the speaker and power supply cabinet , with weather strip foam under the piece of 2x3:


The veneer repair on the top of the speaker and power supply cabinet (note the thin strip of new veneer where a thin strip was missing on the right side). I'm not sure I like the repair piece now, as it seems to need more grain. I may wipe on some stain to evaluate it.

The toning on the cabinet is called gradient shading. Practice it before you try to duplicate it. Sometimes I use an airbrush.

I have one that I never restored that I purchased at Radiofest back in the Elgin days.

Have seen relatively few over the years and never with legs.

Will try to get a pic of mine tomorrow

Oops

Oops. Internet burp

Mine had legs, but I realize now it was an S-10, not a J-8. The S-10 looks like this:

http://www.radiolaguy.com/Showcase/Cons ... zy-Boy.htm

Peter

This radio has been on one of my two work tables for far too much time, but I'm now starting on radios which need to have parts made by a wood worker. I'll find somebody to make a base on which the speaker unit may be placed. Given the apparent lack of any attachment for the base to the legs assembly, it is easy to see how they could become separated. If anyone has an S-10 or J-8 with the base, I'd sure appreciate photos of the leg assembly, especially from the bottom.

It is finished, looking good and playing nicely.

After studying photos of the bottom of an S-10 base unit, I realized that the J-8 never had the same legs. I would have seen glue residue and so forth. I did find some holes in the J-8 base which were probably the tack feet originally installed.

Have you ever seen one? I see that one of the remote units (only) sold on Radio Attic, but can find nothing on the Internet to indicate than any others have survived. In 1933, Motorola decided to see if they could be successful selling home radios, so came out with the J-8 and S-10. The brief articles on them in the old radio magazines only show the S-10.

Making a new cable to connect the remote to the base unit was not easy. I found some fiberglass sleeving which is a nice color, then make the cable from individual wires. One wire is shielded. Pulling them through the sleeving was difficult.

Nice job!

Examining the photos in old radio magazines, I did not see gradient shading, so think it is something done by more recent owners of some of the S-10 radios.

No thoughts? I see the view count increasing every day... It would be nice to know if anyone else has, or has seen, a J-8.

My thought... beautiful and unusual radio and an excellent restoration!

I am rarely so lucky to find anything so nice AND unusual. Normally when I find something rare it is beyond salvage.

Lindsey.

While searching for something else, this on Bill Lear came up on Page 31 of The Inventor's Almanac 2007: "The More the Motorola became a success, the less it held Lear's attention. His side ventures at the time included designing a radio remote control, named the "Lazy Boy" and a new car radio..."

The factory fella that sprayed this cabinet took a que from Midwest. Love the toning overspray art, good luck with it !

The overspray seen on one or two S-10 models was probably not factory-applied. The images in the magazine articles do not shown any such overspray. It is something done by some E-bay sellers in recent years, and they do it to almost every radio.

Wow, 3097 views of this thread! Do I have the only one of these left?

Hi Stephen, nice job putting that back together!

I don't think you have the only one left, but they're certainly not common. I saw one in 2014 when I was at the SPARK Museum in Bellingham, WA. I snapped this picture of it. The gradient toning around the edges appears to be authentic and original, and also the lighter circle where the speaker is.

Thank you! That is indeed interesting. When I have time, I may do the gradient toning on my example. The one I have clearly belongs in a museum, if only there was one in southern California. Perhaps there will be one before I kick the bucket.