Veneer for old radio

Hello Folks

Greeting from a new member who restores old radios. One of these has a piece of missing veneer that needs matching. Available literature says that "specially selected highly figured walnut veneers" were used. However searches on the net haven't turned up a close match. Maybe that is unlikely or impossible. I had considered using a pale veneer of some sort and using watercolours to produce a replica for the small area required.

Anyway, a picture is worth a thousand words so here is the radio. Hoping someone can help.

Happy New Year!


Attachment 193497

Where was the radio made? I might help with determining the veneer used?

The three horizontal bands in your picture do not look like walnut to me. A lighter veneer like tasmanian oak cut with a vertical grain direction and stained might do the trick ( A dark grain filler will highlight the banding).

If its only the 3 hortizonal bands, you might be able to remove all 3 and replace them all ensuring a perfect match.

Hello joez

Thanks for your quick reply.

The radio was made by Standard Telephones & Cables (STC) at Sydney in 1939.

I had thought of replacing all three bands but would then need to fit them neatly into the other veneer - as a tyro with veneer repairs not keen to try this. If I did remove I think I would take out the damaged one only at the side and move it to cover the damaged area at the front, and then put the new veneer at the side where it isn't so obvious. Is this practical?

I had thought that it might be pine or some other light timber stained to look like walnut as you suggest. But would need a stain or filler that stains some bands preferentially. And also to match the other bars of the grill. This what made me think of water colours which could be built up gradually and checked for colour when wet. Only a small area to do. Hopefully when varnished it would look the same as wet. Is this a recognised technique failing a close replacement veneer match?

Do you think I am in the appropriate Forum on the site?

I have never used water based dyes before, just get hold of some Tas Oak veneer and test out some different finishes with it.


I think you might be on the wrong forum , if you message an Administrator they can move the thread for you.


joez

If the literature relates to the manufacturer of your radio, I'd believe them. But I think the walnut they used was Qld walnut. I agree the horizontal veneer doesn't look like walnut, but it's a bit hard to tell on cross banded veneer. I reckon you could get away with Tas blackwood.

Cheers
Michael

I'll try changing the forum.

The literature was a contemporary STC Sales Manual so hopefully the info is kosher. I suppose it depends on whether a finish made to look like walnut was acceptable in those days. However STC advertised in the national press at the time so they would have had to watch their ps & qs
eg 22 Jun 1938 - Advertising
A good one considering happenings at the SCG

Thanks for your help gents.

I'd go with Qld Walnut the reason it looks yellowish is because the shellac has darkened over time.

Let me know the sizes you want and i'll post you down some Qld Walnut if I can sort of match the grain out of what I have here.

PM me or send an email to [email protected]


Cheers

Steve

:UJust a suggestion, if you go to some second hand shops, they may have some old pieces of furniture which may consist of a matching veneer.

Sometimes driving to work I see old furniture in hard waste on road side.

Regards Dave:U

Steve has generously offered to send me the few square cm required, if he has it.

I have been on the lookout at op shops, dumps, roadside etc but haven't seen anything like the striped pattern. But this raises the question of how to remove the veneer without damaging it. Will soaking in water do the trick?

The damaged bar on the radio has taken a blow at some time which has delaminated it and knocked out the outer layers of veneer and ply. Previous experience has shown that sometimes the decorative layer is perilously thin, particularly on outer curves, so I haven't seriously considered removing the whole stripe, even if I knew how.

My approach to the repair is to bend up a piece of 5 ply to the same radius and size as the missing piece with steam and fit it with a tinplate or brass reinforcement epoxied on the back to give lateral strength, fill as required, then attach the finish veneer. But any suggestions/criticism gratefully received - I fear cracking at the joins.

Is the horizontal bar that is damaged completely broken or only broken part way through? If only partly broken, I would cut the face veneer cleanly at each end so the new veneer will butt up invisibly. Reglue the substrate with hide glue (cut out any veneers that don't remesh and glue in replacement). Then glue on the top veneer with hide glue.
If the bar is broken right through, I would take a thin steel flat bar and bend it to the correct shape using the bar below. Make a thickish veneer to place on the back side of the broken bar (full length). You could hot pipe bend the veneer to roughly the right shape. Paint it with hide glue and let it gel. Heat up the steel bar in the oven and clamp the hot bar and the veneer to the back of the broken bar. Allow it to cool and check the bond. You may have to play with the temperature of the bar to ensure it remelts the glue. Once that's done, leave the bar in place and continue repair as per the first instructions.
You can't steam bend plywood.

Cheers
Michael

Thanks for the tips.

The bar is essentially taken out as only the two delaminated back plies remain, broken at one end, out of a total of four (not including the thin veneer) as far as I can tell. Total thickness is ~5mm, with the plies in the direction of the bend thinner than the tranverse plies.

I gather that the original manufacture would have been by hot dry bending around a former.

depends.
If it was made up from single 'ply' pieces (e.g. single pieces of thick veneer glued together), then the pieces were probably wetted down (sometimes with hot water) and bent in the former, maybe had steam applied instead of wetting.
When you say 'damaged bar' I think that it is a piece of made up, curved, ply... correct me if I'm wrong.
If so, then why not make a former and steam some reasonably close grained pine. bend it around the former with a metal strip or a ratchetting 'tape' or even rope. Just make the curve a little tighter than what you want to end up with to accomodate spring back.
Veneer the inside and outside wiih your fancy veneer.

If so, tell me the dimensions and I may have some material that suits that I can post you.
If the whole lot is ply, then it will be a bugger to make it up from the same materials as sourcing the thick veneers is difficult, unless you can cut it yourself with a bandsaw. The veneers you can buy readily are 'face veneers' and too think to really make up structural parts from.
If I visualise it right, and if I were doing it and didn't have the right thickness single ply leaves, then I'd bend a piece of pine and just veneer front and back.

From close inspection it appears that the cabinet was formed and the bars produced by cutting the holes in the cabinet. Whether the cabinet as a whole was formed from the four ply already made up or laid up to form the curve from the plies individually I can't tell. I would expect cracks in the vertical plies in the curved area if the cabinet was formed from four ply already made up, but this is not exposed anywhere. Can't tell if the veneer was on at this time.

I like the idea of forming a bar from solid pine. I had originally thought of bending it up from some 6 ply that I have.

Thanks for the offer of the veneer, but Steve has already offered to send me a matching piece if he has one - for which I thank him also. The size is small - 75 x 15mm would be adequate.

I'd say that the individual sheets of 'ply' veneer were steamed to be supple, then laid over a former and glued. Not an uncommon method for this period.

I like old radio cabinets. A lot of the Aussie, Sydney based factories were made in Marrickville or Tempe.

I've a stack of old radio magazines I could copy for you.... 1930's - 1950's with very good educational articles in the war year ones.
Interested?

I've a stack of old radio magazines I could copy for you.... 1930's - 1950's with very good educational articles in the war year ones.
Interested?


Thanks for the generous offer!

Old literature is always of interest, for the ads as much as for the articles. I would think of this trouble as for preservation as well as for my own use, and would make the information available on a vintage radio forum that I belong to.

Perhaps a list of the magazines with dates, or copies of the contents pages would be a start to enable the most useful & interesting to be selected to minimise the amount of work - 30s to 50s sounds like a lot of magazines.

By copy do you mean photocopy, or scan say to pdf?

Good idea, I'll go through them and send you the titles and dates and you can prioritise them. Sharing them on your other forum is an excellent idea.

PDF would be better for sharing, but not sure if I can scan to pdf... I'll check out the options back at work.

PDF would be better for sharing, but not sure if I can scan to pdf... I'll check out the options back at work.

Only suggested pdf because just about everyone has a reader or can get one free. Also multiple pages can be scanned and put in one file, at least on my scanner.

When removing the chassis from the radio the missing piece fell out - must have been pushed in among the workings somewhere by the previous owner.

The piece fits very well so I would like to fix it back in again, since this would solve the veneer matching problem.

But one problem is replaced by another. There has been a spring back in the remaining bar so the joints will be under stress. I can glue some veneer on the back but think it will be too flexible leading to cracking of the front finished face.

A thicker piece of wood could be glued on the back, but for appearance sake the grill cloth should fit flush to the back of the grill bars. So maybe a metal reinforcement glued on the back would be better. Any ideas?