This is my first flip-clock restore. And it is intended to be my personal "daily driver". This clock radio has been covered extensively by Mackey and others, so there's not a lot I can add. But I possibly did a few things that I've not seen covered. My wood sides were in pretty poor condition with the finish worn, significant fading, and a few dings. So I decided to strip and refinish them. Removing the ends proved to be more challenging than expected. Each piece of wood is attached to the lower plastic casing with 4 screws. However, when the screws were removed, the wood was still firmly holding onto the plastic case. It turns out that a generous amount of glue was also used to attach the wood sides. 'Slow-and-patient' wins the day when removing the wood. I used a putty knife wedged between the wood and plastic to gently apply separating pressure. I also used a heat gun on low from a distance on short intervals to warm the adhesive and avoid over-heating the 50 year old plastic. For me, it was about a 3 hour process.
To refinish, I
1) Stripped 3 times with CitrusStrip, letting the stripper sit for 30-60 minutes each time
2) Cleaned the remaining residue with mineral spirits until nothing came off on the cloth
3) Let dry 24 hours
4) Lightly sanded with 220 grit sandpaper
5) Applied a light base layer of Bullseye wax-free Shellac with a disposable blue shop towel and let dry 2 hours
6) Buffed with a fine steel wool
7) Adjusted the color to slightly more red using Touch Up Solutions Toner Dye Lacquer and let dry 30 minutes (fading had given a slight green hue + I'll be placing the clock on a mahogany night stand)
8) Applied a light spray coat of Shellac to lock in the toner color and let dry 2 hours
9) Buffed with fine steel wool
10) Applied 4 'film' layers of thinned polyurethane, drying 4 hours and buffing with steel wool between each coat (I use 60% Parks Pro Finisher Polyurethane for Floors cut with 40% mineral spirits, and I dip a disposable blue shop towel squeeze it out to just damp, and wipe all surfaces of the wood with a very thin coat.)
11) Waxed with Howard's Feed-N-Wax Beeswax & Orange Oil
(This is the basic process I use when refinishing furniture. It might be overkill for a clock radio.)
On the upper plastic case, I had difficulties getting the textured parts of the case clean with the hot water, dawn, and scrub brush method. I eventually placed the entire upper case into a large ultrasonic cleaner that I happen to own for vinyl record albums. The ultrasonic cleaner did a better job. I guess my upper case was just in much worse condition than many. Before reassembly, I used Mother's Back-to-Black plastic restorer on all of the black plastic surfaces and knobs. I really like the results from this compared to spray shine automotive products because it doesn't leave any oily residue on the surface.
And, last but not least, my FM dial indicator had fallen off and was not in the radio case. A HUUUUGGGGGEEEE thank you to Mackey to digging in his dungeon to help a newby out to make a replacement part available. Each dial (FM/AM) is a white cap that snaps into the radio assembly from the front. There is a thin piece of black plastic with a line cut out glued to the front. The glue had failed on the FM dial, the face was missing. When I opened the case and barely touched the AM dial, the face fell off of that one as well. To reattach the one I had, I scuffed the back side of the face with some sandpaper to give a rough surface for adhesion, then aligned and re-glued using superglue.
Before shot of wood sides:
After shot of wood side:
Before shot of FM dial:
After shot of FM dial:
To refinish, I
1) Stripped 3 times with CitrusStrip, letting the stripper sit for 30-60 minutes each time
2) Cleaned the remaining residue with mineral spirits until nothing came off on the cloth
3) Let dry 24 hours
4) Lightly sanded with 220 grit sandpaper
5) Applied a light base layer of Bullseye wax-free Shellac with a disposable blue shop towel and let dry 2 hours
6) Buffed with a fine steel wool
7) Adjusted the color to slightly more red using Touch Up Solutions Toner Dye Lacquer and let dry 30 minutes (fading had given a slight green hue + I'll be placing the clock on a mahogany night stand)
8) Applied a light spray coat of Shellac to lock in the toner color and let dry 2 hours
9) Buffed with fine steel wool
10) Applied 4 'film' layers of thinned polyurethane, drying 4 hours and buffing with steel wool between each coat (I use 60% Parks Pro Finisher Polyurethane for Floors cut with 40% mineral spirits, and I dip a disposable blue shop towel squeeze it out to just damp, and wipe all surfaces of the wood with a very thin coat.)
11) Waxed with Howard's Feed-N-Wax Beeswax & Orange Oil
(This is the basic process I use when refinishing furniture. It might be overkill for a clock radio.)
On the upper plastic case, I had difficulties getting the textured parts of the case clean with the hot water, dawn, and scrub brush method. I eventually placed the entire upper case into a large ultrasonic cleaner that I happen to own for vinyl record albums. The ultrasonic cleaner did a better job. I guess my upper case was just in much worse condition than many. Before reassembly, I used Mother's Back-to-Black plastic restorer on all of the black plastic surfaces and knobs. I really like the results from this compared to spray shine automotive products because it doesn't leave any oily residue on the surface.
And, last but not least, my FM dial indicator had fallen off and was not in the radio case. A HUUUUGGGGGEEEE thank you to Mackey to digging in his dungeon to help a newby out to make a replacement part available. Each dial (FM/AM) is a white cap that snaps into the radio assembly from the front. There is a thin piece of black plastic with a line cut out glued to the front. The glue had failed on the FM dial, the face was missing. When I opened the case and barely touched the AM dial, the face fell off of that one as well. To reattach the one I had, I scuffed the back side of the face with some sandpaper to give a rough surface for adhesion, then aligned and re-glued using superglue.
Before shot of wood sides:
After shot of wood side:
Before shot of FM dial:
After shot of FM dial:
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