[codefox1]

Wow--I didn't think my very first post as a new member of the Phorum would attract so much attention. But I'm glad it did because now I have come away feeling much more "grounded" and justified not going overboard. Even at car shows I never much liked the guys who had to trailer their beauties. They have lost out on the great feeling of actually driving what they paid for much for. (Speaking of that--I had a typo in my post--I have spent 3,200.00 and not 32,000 thankfully!!)

I don't think anyone addressed the idea of having a voltage regulator used with vintage electronic equipment....

After seeing how lovely and useful a reproduction dial like those carried my Mark Oppat can be, I decided to spend just a tiny bit more on my radio. I'll keep the old dial but at least now when it lights up it won't look smeary and I'll be able to see what stations I'm on.

Speaking of Mark he advised me to dry clean my original cloth (which is surprisingly strong--I tried tearing it to test and no problems). I realize how many are treasuring old cloth but was surprised when he told me to do that since my dry cleaner said nothing would take away fading. What really hurt was knowing he has some cloth which he was going to sell me before I sent him photos of mine. I searched for week and weeks and he is my last hope. Outside of him, my wife saw some very fine looking cloth at JoAnn Fabrics. It has the same olive color, has the gold tones, but also has a fine reddish stripe here and there. Hmmmm....

You'd be surprised what a young pair of eyes and a spotting brush can do with a small piece of cloth. I'm talking about the ancient art of touching up color negatives, and the still current art of making dental bridges to match the rest of the mouth. Yep, it's an art, and I'm long past it. This is museum s**t but can be done rather convincingly. Gonna have to pay for it, and need a reliable original chrome to match with. Problem with a lot of upholtery material is that it's not really meant to be acousticaly transparent, and will muffle higher tones while absorbing and thumping lower tones. To some extent it matters not on a smaller A.M. radio which has not much range to begin with, but as we go up the scale, it matters.