[FStephenMasek]

I glued the cabinet back together today. While gluing it, I thought the finish on the pillars looked like paint.

After that, I tried to wipe the front and vertical front pillars with lacquer thinner. After using the lacquer thinner, which did not remove it, I am almost certain it is really black paint. That would explain why the finish falls off on all of the similar models.

We have had a difficult time with our 620B, as it had been stripped long before we bought it, and was very dry. The tonned lacquer works well on the vertical pillars, which are solid wood, but not on the plywod sides and top. We wiped it with dark walnut gell stain last wekend, after we had sprayed many coats of extra dark toned lacquer a few months ago. We first sanded it last weekend to rremove some of the roughness still left in the wood. The gell stain would not then cover. Today, I removed the finish on the top and sides with lacquer thinner. I then applied the dark walnut gell stain three times, but it is far from dark enough. The pillars look fine, and the front panel wooks fine, so I think I'll spray the top and sides with black paint, then cover it all with clear lacquer.

Parts of the 116B cabinet are also very dry, and some areas of the black stripes are missing or deteriorated. Unless I find a better idea, I'll fix the stripes with wood filler and then paint or stain the stripes.

Ron, your photo in the thread on your 116B was very helpful, as the finish on our radio is too far gone to have noticed the darker center and bottom of the front.

I lightly cleaned the chassis today, and it does not appear to have ever been serviced, although the filter capacitors are Mallory, not Philco, and not one of the 11 tubes was a Philco tube.