Murphy A4 with A24 chassis.

[Geordie McBoyne]

Last year along with the Viewmaster kit TV the seller also offered for sale a chassis which had been removed from a Murphy A24 radio set.
Many years earlier I acquired  another Murphy radio, a model A4.  Decent cabinet but the chassis is junk.
Checking out the two chassis I find that the metal work is very similar so it should be possible to install the A24 chassis into the A4 cabinet. The only mechanical modification necessary will be that the A24 tuning capacitor will have to be raised about 12mm in order the control shaft and tuning dial are correctly positioned in the A4 cabinet.  
The A24 capacitor block will have to be rebuilt.

A worthwhile project?    I reckon it is.

Geordie McBoyne.

[AlanBeckett]

Which is the good one?


Seriously, why not? You'd at least finish up with a decent looking working Set.

Alan

[Geordie McBoyne]

Hi Alan, The A24 chassis doesn't look very nice but at least it's complete.  The A4 chassis has been stripped of so many components to the extent it is not worth bothering with.  However, that chassis can be used for another project. I have a Murphy TPG11 405 line pattern generator, it's complete except for the power unit, that's missing. The A4 chassis would be fine for the construction of a power pack.
I believe the A24 is a very good recever.

Geordie McBoyne.

[AlanBeckett]

I bought an A48, only really because it has the same Dial arrangement as my B40. I really must get it out again as it's a very attractive Set.

   

I've got a couple of Pattern Generators, a Jasonkit Wobbulator, a Televet and a VT4. One of these days I'll have to get them all out and set to.

Good luck with it, or both I should say.

Alan

[Radio Fixer]

Geordie before you make a Frankenstein radio why not ask Mike Barker (Murphy Mad) if he has a spare A4 chassis? Best to E-mail him on his Chairman handle or phone .... and NVCF is coming up

I know from a friend that he has a large stock of Murphy spares.

Gary

[Geordie McBoyne]

It might be a good idea to have a word with Mike, however, there's a working A4 chassis on eBay. There's no doubt another chassis would speed up the job.
Restoring the one I have here is not going to be an easy job.

Geordie McBoyne.

[Radio Fixer]

And it will never be a proper A4 Murphy with the wrong chassis in it. The name Frankenstein radio is very apt: personally I would never use my time making one.

Gary

[Murphyv310]

Hi.
Sometimes you have no option to make up a "Frankenstein" bodge!
A friend of mine brings me two or three Radio Chassis twice a year, they come form some eccentric fellow that pulls out the chassis for sets that have immaculate cabinets and builds in a modern DAB set (UGH). It's saddening as I fix the chassis up box them up and they get stored in the loft, I dont go out of my way to look for cabinets but have rehoused the odd one in a different cabinet. Surely that has to be better than binning a perfectly good radio chassis? Plus of course perhaps one day a good cabinet of the right type will turn up.

[Radio Fixer]

It maybe for you Trevor  but there are so many radios out there, complete with loads of interest at low prices, I wouldn't bother.  For me it would be sell the chassis on or wait for a bad chassis radio with a reasonable cabinet.

The last 3 radios I bought with masses of interest cost £70, £30 and £42.  The first has the electronics finished but the cabinet didn't turn out well so that's a redo this summer if we get any decent weather.  The other 2 are waiting collection.

Some of my early days cabinets aren't finished the way they were originally but on some I had no choice them being badly damaged before they found me.  Most of those have found new homes and it pleases me that they are gone.

I try to leave items as original as possible, that includes re-stuffing and having items rewound or doing it myself if possible with my crude winder.  Am I fussey?  Yes! its got that way.  A case in point is a Gecophone Stork speaker that has never been played since restoring it.  It had a perfectly good driver (speaker) in there but it wasn't the right one.  Kept looking and eventually found another with a ruined cabinet but with a good driver.   Managed to buy that and swapped over and fitted a more appropriate grill cloth.  Its never been played since either but I'm really happy with it and can look at it with pleasure  .

As the great Jeff. D. Nuttall once said its good to be a little mad in the old radio game   .

Gary

[Geordie McBoyne]

There is a Murphy A4 chassis on eBay. All indications it will go for daft money. It's at £38 at the time of writing this and there is only four hours to go to the end of the auction.

OK, it will be a Frankenstein radio but at least it will still be a Murphy.  We can designate as model A4/24.

Geordie McBoyne.