Mystery Pye by Video

[Geaney]

Well I thought I'd bite the bullet, hang up the spray gun and try this on my current cabinet reproduction. I figure if it all goes bad I can sand back and return to the spray booth
The cab design is pretty simple so hopefully I won't make too much of a mess with the shellac. I'll let you know how it goes.

John
P.S: The cab is for that PYE I got which seems not to exist anywhere as far as online documentation is concerned.

[Yorkie]

That looks really bonny John!

Finishing woody cabinets is the Achiles heel of restoration - most seem to take the line of least resistance - strip off the lacquer, and a couple of coats of Danish oil. The end results may be pleasing, but Danish oil penetrates the wood, cures, and the cabinet can then never be rerstored to its original condition, which will have been aprayed lacquer, perhaps with toner fist.

What is the chassis, dial, back panel and knobs like - ready to go back into their 'home'?

David

[Geaney]

Thanks David,

Fortunately the rest of the set is in reasonable condition. The dial is almost perfect - just a few bits of paint missing but not in critical areas. The knobs were seized on to the shafts but some coaxing got them off without damage. The chassis works fine (needed new audio output valve). So, once the cab is done I should have a nice radio for the collection - even though I may never find out exactly what model it is!
John
P.S. I've put a few video clips of the project on YouTube so if you have some time to kill one day just type 'Mystery PYE' in the search field and you should find them.

[Yorkie]

Thanks David,

Fortunately the rest of the set is in reasonable condition. The dial is almost perfect - just a few bits of paint missing but not in critical areas. The knobs were seized on to the shafts but some coaxing got them off without damage. The chassis works fine (needed new audio output valve). So, once the cab is done I should have a nice radio for the collection - even though I may never find out exactly what model it is!
John
P.S. I've put a few video clips of the project on YouTube so if you have some time to kill one day just type 'Mystery PYE' in the search field and you should find them.

I've just spent and enjoyable half an hour or so looking at the whole sequence - what a great effort John - I'd no idea that you'd gone to such lengths in making the cabinet from scratch, then cutting out the letters for the logo in mother of pearl and insetting them into that lovely bookmarked rosewood venered top! Neither did I appreciate how much effort and skill has gone into restoring the chassis. Great that it's working, and sounds really good too!

This is what the hobby is all about - so much enjoyment can be derived from taking something that looks unpromising, and 'making a silk purse out of a sow's ear'.

The youtube video clips deserve a much wider audience!

David

[Geaney]

Glad you like the clips David. Yes this one will have pride of place in the living room when I'm done. I'm told it belonged to my grandparents but I'm not completely sure. I've taken 100's of photos along the way so I may do a step-by-step write-up when it's finished. I say 'may' because I had the same intention when I did the P53 but a hard disk crash (and no backup) meant I lost most of the photos. I'm being more careful now.
John

[Yorkie]

Glad you like the clips David. Yes this one will have pride of place in the living room when I'm done. I'm told it belonged to my grandparents but I'm not completely sure. I've taken 100's of photos along the way so I may do a step-by-step write-up when it's finished. I say 'may' because I had the same intention when I did the P53 but a hard disk crash (and no backup) meant I lost most of the photos. I'm being more careful now.
John

I'll look forward to viewing further installments on youtube John as the project reaches its conclusion - do keep us posted!

David

[Retired]

Hi,

Very well done indeed John in making and finishing the PYE cabinet. My chum David (Yorkie) sent me the link to "you tube" a while ago and I enjoyed the first two episodes of your cabinet project and finally this afternoon re-watched these together with the remainder.

I was particularly impressed with your method of producing the PYE logo which looks the part and will never be scratched off. Splendid success.

Joe (The Pil) mentioned in another thread that in simplest terms three coats of brush applied shellac and flatted using wet or dry abrasive paper would give a decent finish. Amazing results can be achieved by doing this very thing and believe me it is so easy where a high gloss French polished finish is not required.

I recently restored a wooden clock case for my chum Mike and spent quite a while French polishing the main case but I thought the mirror gloss to be way over the top as it looked garish and out of place in this situation.

I've tried using wire wool previously to dull or knock the gloss off leaving a nice matt finish but always without success; the wire wool I found to be unpredictable leaving various depth scratches in the finish even though it was used with paste wax as a lubricant.

I needed to do something and at first considered flatting using 1000 grit abrasive paper lubricated with talcum powder but then decided to experiment with wire wool once again.

This time I used Liquid Paraffin as a lubricant; what a difference this now made and I was delighted with the finish which now looked perfect. I still had the clock door to re-finish so I returned the bare cabinet to Mike to get it out of the way so that I could free up bench space to concentrate on the door.

At this point I was expecting a lot of grief in trying to use the polishing rubber once the brush coats of shellac had been applied because of the joints etc in the door and also I didn't want to try to remove the glass as it was over 100 years old so had masked the glass off ready.

Not wanting a mirror finish I decided to simply try brushing a good thickness of shellac onto the door then once allowed to dry to go over with the wire wool (0000 grade) and liquid paraffin. It worked a treat and the finish was once again delightful to look at and stroke with my fingers. I did try my best to get the brush coats of shellac on as evenly as possible and can highly recommend this method to anyone as an alternative to using Danish Oil. As with any flatting of a finish much care is needed not to cut through the finish to bare timber at corners and edges. I hope the pictures are interesting. This clock case was made entirely of softwood which I thought most unusual and the softwood had been veneered in walnut veneer. The top front panel was a mess so was replaced with a piece of vintage plywood and the cabinet re-veneered using traditional hot hide glue. Mike was delighted with the result and I heaved a sigh of relief.

Kind regards, Col.

                               

[Mark R]

As this is such a good job and so impressive it deserves it's own thread, which I wanted to title "Mystery Pye by video!" but have forgotten how. doh!

the link is here and is absolutely fascinating.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mystery+pye&aq=f

Well done that man!

cheers Mark

[Joe]

Your wish is my command, oh Regular Mark (Edit by regular Mark. I am no leader)!

- Joe

[Mark R]

So tell me how to do it lol

cheers Mark