[mikethedruid]

Tested the tubes tonight, they were all good. The #44 pilot light was out, replaced that. Plugged all the tubes in except the 5Y3, and turned it on. The pilot light lit up, and the 6F6 filament began to glow. The rest are metal tubes, so you can't see the filaments. No smoke, no crackles or pops, all good signs. Plugged in the 5Y3, and turned it on again. Low hum from the speaker when volume was full. Began to tune around the AM band. LOTS of crackling, isolated it to the band switch which I hadn't cleaned, and is bound to have some resin residue on it from my de-soldering and re-soldering of things. Despite this I was able to hear a few stations with no antenna at all hooked up. Turned it back off and sprayed the heck out of the band switch and worked it back and forth a lot. Have to let it sit and dry out before any more testing, but all looks good. I couldn't have screwed up TOO badly. We'll see how it goes tomorrow when the band switch has dried out. Hopefully I can check out the alignment.

In other news, I did some filling work on the cabinet last night, and sanding of the excess today. It doesn't look bad for a cabinet that was as badly broken as it was. I just have to touch up the little place where there is filler for a tiny missing bit which shows with some brown paint, then, when that dries, I'll shoot the cabinet with some satin poly and be done with that part.