Stromberg Carlson 1101 - A New Dial Face

[@vicmabus1532]

Novus #2 works great on bakelite!

[@theradiomechanic9625]

Hi vic, thanks for the tip. I'll have to pick some up and give it a go.

[@hestheMaster]

I was looking online and saw a better example of the all white letter version of the dial face. Apparently they made a later production change to use only white ( letters and numbers) on the curved plastic piece itself without the glass! You did a great job on it Vern.

[@jimnewman5596]

The dial came out like factory.

[@tarstarkusz]

11:42 I'm really surprised at how well that shows up. Great work.

[@theradiomechanic9625]

Thank you, glad I could change your mind from your first post. 😀

[@tarstarkusz]

@@theradiomechanic9625 I'm happy it worked. Putting a white background on the arcade machines was easy because you didn't have to see through it. But that would have been impossible here because you wouldn't see the dial pointer.

[@hamradio3716]

Nice job, as usual, Vern. If you “need” a ham radio project, I have an ICOM AH-2 auto tuner that I am trying to repair. The SWR and phase detector circuits have a gremlin that eludes me. I don’t have the service manual for the AH-2 but I do have the service manual for the AT-120 which is the marine version of the AH-2. They are basically the same units. I have changed out the pertinent ICs and OP amps. The schematic does not have enough test points (for me) to find the fault. 73, Bernie VE3FWF

[@theradiomechanic9625]

Hi bernie, are you out of the snow up there yet? Hit me up in a month or so when I get a little bit caught up and I might be willing to take a look at it.

[@tarstarkusz]

8:55 OK.. I'm going to say you won't be able to see those letters. I've done work like this before for mini-arcade machines (I'm Gen-X). Lots of them have ripped decals. The problem is the ink doesn't show up well on a transparency until the white background is present. I ended up having to paint the back of the transparency white or glue white paper to the back of the transparency so you could see it.

[@tubeDude48]

I buy all of my dials from Radio Daze, and their last news letter said they have added more, and more to come. I leave that headache to someone else!

[@theradiomechanic9625]

Well sure if you want to pay 50 bucks for a dial. This one cost me a sheet of printer paper in an hour's work.

[@theradiomechanic9625]

And I looked at his I think mine looks better

[@criageek]

@@theradiomechanic9625 Plus, you did it yourself. I thoroughly enjoy learning to do things like this myself rather than pay a whole bunch more for someone else to do it, and often times theirs is not as nice as you can do yourself. Nice job. You said you were going to use "2 layers of wet transfer". What does that mean? I have always had trouble getting enough ink printed so that the numbers would actually show up...I'm assuming the 2 layer concept is meant to overcome that problem. Could you elaborate? Thanks, Rich

[@theradiomechanic9625]

@@criageek What I was shooting for was placing a decal on the back of the glass and one on the front to emulate the original silk screen which gave "depth" to the dial face. But getting the two to perfectly align would be a horror show. You would have to print the rear one in reverse which isn't that big an issue, but not worth the trouble. Most printers have setup options to darken the print by applying more ink. You can experiment with those settings ( sometimes listed as "paper type" ) to see if that helps. Also choose your colors for high contrast which led to the black numbers with yellow insets. BTW I am using an Epson Eco-Tank 2760. Love this printer. It is the only one I have ever owned that can sit idle for 6 months, run a cleaning cycle and recover. I'll never buy a cartridge machine again.

[@tubeDude48]

@@theradiomechanic9625 - No need to get upset. Just passing along my thoughts.

[@alanfryer5670]

Nice video. Can you share with us the source and part number of the water decal sheets?

[@theradiomechanic9625]

Name on the package is "Sunnyscopa". And they are just generic "Waterslide Decal Sheets". Available almost anywhere. Amazon has dozens of them. I have had these for several years and probably bought them at Staples but don't really remember.