Jan 2003... Some background -- About a year ago, this Sonora WAU-243 was obtained from Steve Adams of "Radio Attic" fame. I had seen Steve's post when he found the radio a couple of years earlier. I believe I'd emailed him back then with an "if you ever want to sell it Steve" type of offer. Then a little over a year ago, Steve announced he was reducing his collection. I immediately emailed Steve and reiterated my offer. After some discussion, Steve made me an offer I couldn't refuse, and a deal was struck.


front

The complete radio as unpacked.

rear

The back side of the radio.


Steve had warned me the Sonora was a bit rough, he was right. Unpacking it, I found the sad-looking cabinet to be half stripped of its paint, the result of an earlier half hearted restoration attempt. The back was missing, as was the grill cloth. In the packing box, I found a small yellow envelope containing some cardboard fragments - the remnants of the back. About 40% of it anyway. Also in the envelope was the cardboard grill cloth backer and the residue of the grill cloth -- which disintegrated when I touched it.

With plenty of home projects and precious little time to work on radios, and 4 radios already in process on the bench, I was in no hurry to start another project. So the Sonora sat until last fall. I took it apart a couple of times to assess the situation. What I found was a somewhat rusty chassis, an intact cabinet with no real chips or cracks, a complete complement of knobs and pushbuttons. The pushbuttons are made of some early clear plastic that did not generally withstand the decades so well. These are fair. All in all a project... for certain. The chassis scares me the most!

A couple months ago, I posted a "wanted" ad on the rec.antiques.radio+phono newsgroup, a simple one-liner asking for a tracing of the back for this radio. Mike Shultz was kind enough to respond, he went right to work making a high-precision tracing of the back of his Sonora. He even went so far as to scan the label and send me a .jpg of that.


label

Mike, by the way is a fellow Silvertone Rocket owner. He has a truly amazing collection of radios and a fantastic website....Reverse Time Page . Mike also mentioned he had a parts chassis in case I might need it.

I took Mike's tracing and made a few copies. At a local art supply store, I bought a large sheet of 32 ply chipboard -- this is laminated cardboard -- and proceed to duplicate the Sonora back from Mike's tracing. I'll need to paint it a faded black somehow. I also printed the label out and cut it to size. I then re-created the grille cloth backer using the same material.


back fragments

The old and new radio backs.

Here are some shots of the components:

knobs

Knobs (color enhanced to match actual color).

chassis

A very rusty chassis.

bottom

A shot of the label on the bottom.

More of the story to follow.... Stay tuned.

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