Philco Model 56 valve radio

Philco 56 Domed veneered wood case AC. EF39, KTW63, EL32 and 80   Long/medium wavebands and pick up. This set has been messed about with, but is now working USA 1933

AC mains operated 5 valve superhet table top radio housed in veneered wood cabinet covering 550-1500kc/s and 150-300kc/s. manufactured in USA probably in1933 ( the inside of the cabinet is stamped AUG10 ?, the last number is unreadable)

The original valve line up was : 36 44 36 42 80 but in my set the first three had been replaced by octal equivalents :EF39 KTW63 and EL32  

This cathedral cabinet was designed by Clyde Shuler. Someone at Philco must have really liked this style, as this same basic design was used on every Philco cathedral made from June 1932 through December 1933. A similar, but less well preserved cabinet housing a model 52b can be seen on:

http://www.philcoradio.com/gallery/52b.htm

Incidentally this is a very useful site as Philco radios hide many of their capacitors in black Bakelite mouldings and metal casings labelled with part numbers.

The schematic diagram is on one of the CD-ROMs available from :

http://www.vintage-radio.com/

I acquired this set in the early 1980's and for many years it never produced anything other than a very loud hum. The above sites enabled me to get the set going and be able to listen to both medium and long wave stations.

On the left of this picture are two wet electrolytic capacitors housed in copper cans, one was completely dry and the other had about a teaspoonful of electrolyte.

I know this because I carefully hacksawed them both apart in the area hidden by the retaining clips. After having done this and removed the perforated aluminium anodes it was possible to effectively hide the replacement capacitors. The wave change switch, worked by a crank is situated above the rectangular aluminium cans which house the tuning and oscillator coils (not the IFs as one might expect) The dial has two scales 55-150 and 15-30, the chassis is stamped with model number D72563, the paper label reads PICKUP JACK

To the left of the chassis number one can faintly discern a five point star and the words Philco Radio which were rubber stamped on the chassis.

I believe there should have been a shield over the valves on the left of this view to slip into the clip adjacent to the red EF39 valve.

The IF transformers are the small cylindrical aluminium cans (one to the left and the other near the top of this picture)

The rectangular tinplate box adjacent to the latter IF can houses 5 capacitors of various sizes. I guess that some of these are not in the best of condition, but I have not attempted to test it or take it apart!

The mains lead has been replaced as have the capacitors in the Bakelite moulding to which it is soldered. Two other bakelite mouldings have been taken apart and their capacitors replaced.

The speaker was very dusty and when cleaned revealed a "General Cable" logo and a part/serial 2674 number was revealed.