Here's a radio that I'm currently working on for a customer. It's a circa 1928 Atwater Kent Model 43. It's still in the teardown stage as of now.

Of course, being ever-curious. I started doing lots of checks on it just to see if it works as is. Interstage transformer checked out good, power transformer good, tubes good, output transformer good. I slowly powered it up with the Variac, and it turns out that it does work, surprisingly well, even! Of course it will be even better when I'm through with it!

My customer does not want it repainted as he likes the antique patina about it, so it's going to more or less look the same when it's finished (but it will get a thorough cleaning). However, it's going to receive a full electronic restoration.

So here's what's on the agenda:

1) Replace all the capacitors
2) Replace all the resistors, including power resistors (most measure out of tolerance)
3) Lots of rewiring, as most of the wires have crispified with age.
4) Strip down the chassis
5) Give everything a thorough cleaning
6) Rebuild/realign the condensers
7) Rebuild the Volume control
8) Clean up all the tube socket contacts
9) Clean up all the other connections
10) Possibly replace the interstage transformer (i'm pretty picky about them)
11) Put everything back together.
12) Replace the power cord
13) Replace miscellaneous screws and mounting hardware that are missing
14) Put it all back together
15) Make an adapter to use a modern speaker with it
16) Give it the final test!