old philco fridge. been in my house since at LEAST the 60’s dunno if it still works. it was about 12 years ago when i pulled the plug. it’s messy. might clean it up and see if it still works…
That’s neat. I’d give better than even odds that it will still work. You could hardly kill those old refrigerators.
We’ve got an old Philco as well; Dad inherited it from his older sister and her husband, I later inherited it from Dad. It’s a 1941 model, at the peak of their art deco style kick. Philco did model year changes, so every year’s radio was different. They paused production after the 1941 model to make radios exclusively for the military. They restarted production of the big cabinet radios briefly after the war, but the demand just wasn’t there anymore.
This thing was still working into the early '80’s. Now we just keep it around because it looks so cool.
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now THAT is cool!! and looks to be in better condition than my fridge
retube and recap worth saving
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I know it’s been done for some of these old radios…but finding a tube tester, and tubes, isn’t trivial, and my understanding is that it’s actually the paper capacitors they used to use that tend to go first. I’d need to do a bunch of research to see what can be used to replace those.
Caps are common, find the value and replace with modern caps, no need for paper caps in this day and age. Caps are cheap, recap first and turn it on Tubes may work, depends how many hours they have been used, if the heaters light up give them some time. Old Tubes don’t turn on instantly, may take several to 10 minutes to start working.
REMEMBER TO DISCHARGE THE CHASSIS BEFORE YOU TOUCH ANYTHING, a good cap will hold a charge, maybe hi voltage
Even if it doesn’t work it’s worth fix’n. Compared to the POs they sell today you found gold.
Very cool! Especially that it is still in working order.
Here’s my old 1939 Zenith. Was my wife’s grandfather’s. Went through the whole thing, replaced some tubes and caps, and it works like a champ. Sinatra on Sundays sounds great through it!
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Neat stuff! I have an old 1950’s PhilCo A/C unit in my last house. I could’ve frozen a whole cow if left alone for 12 hours.