Weird Question

[Philcofan42]

I have a Silvertone R1171 that I paid a whopping $7.00 for. I was planning on doing a recap to get it working and asked my brother-in-law to take a look at the cabinet since he's pretty handy woodworking wise. He feels the cabinet is too far gone to refinish. Delamination can be reglued, but there are areas where the wood has split and shrunk from water damage. He would like to build a replica cabinet from scratch. Is a Sears catalog radio like this even worth bothering with? The recap doesn't look too tough, but I'm going to have to knock a fair amount of corrosion off the chassis while I'm at it. I'm trying to decide if I should try and fix up the original cabinet as best I can, let him build me a new one or just scrap the whole thing and move on to the 1956 Zenith am/fm that's waiting it's turn. Any advice or thoughts would be great!

Thanks,
Dan

[Sandy G]

I would say if you're looking to fix it up to sell, no, it's not worth it. However, if you're fixing it up to keep & enjoy, by all means, have at it !

[Fisherdude]

...Is a Sears catalog radio like this even worth bothering with?...

Thanks,
Dan

Worth it? Of course not. If you're planning on making a profit.

However, if you want to learn how to restore old radios, learn how to figure out a schematic, recap the radio, clean an old chassis, then it's perfect.

If you want to challenge your woodworking skills by building a replica cabinet, it's perfect.

Trust me, you don't want to practice on an EH Scott as your first project.

[Philcofan42]

Worth it? Of course not. If you're planning on making a profit.

However, if you want to learn how to restore old radios, learn how to figure out a schematic, recap the radio, clean an old chassis, then it's perfect.

If you want to challenge your woodworking skills by building a replica cabinet, it's perfect.

Trust me, you don't want to practice on an EH Scott as your first project.

This will be my second project. I've done one sucessfull recap already, but I did pick up the other two radios because they were $7 each and I thought they would provide good experience. I'm not looking to make a profit, and my Brother-in-law certainly has the woodworking skills to pull it off so I'll probably let him have his fun and build me a new cabinet. Any tips for cleaning up the chassis?

Thanks again,
Dan