From old to new: My Radio project

It is a while ago that we sold my parents house and decluttered it. Up in the attic we found an old Radio. It was not in good shape, though.

After a bit of research I found out that it is a “Telefunken Operette 7” from 1956 / 1957. The paint was totally flaked-off and after I switched it on the first time I could only here a loud humming. I took it home anyway.

The radio belonged to my grandparents and my mom can remember the radio standing in their living room. Since I have almost no personal items from my grandparents, it was no option to dump it. So, what options did I have? Give it away for a total makeover? Too expensive. Make it on my own? Probably the only option :-). But I had to bring it to a Radio repair company to get the electric done. Some days later I had a working radio on my table and 200€ less on my bank account. But the housing still looked awful.

The internet is full of how to repair old radios. But as I found out later (too late actually) it was not that easy. I damaged the veneer due to too much sanding. At least I know what a veneer damage is now. 😉 .

But I spend hours with it and so I decided to leave it how it was. Actually I was not really happy with it.

Our cat did not care, I was not really happy with the result.

Some month later I decided to try it again, now with paint instead of pickle. I removed everything. All fittings, knobs etc. and spend hours with painting, sanding, polishing, gluing and blow drying (fittings were fixed with wax in the 50th)