[Nathan Slingerland]

Today I got started on refinishing the 201X top.

Removal

At first I was worrying about how to protect the rest of the cabinet while refinishing the top - but I remembered seeing someplace (Philco Serviceman article? Service bulletin) that the 37-690X had a removable top to make refinishing it easier. Damage to the top of radios has clearly been a problem since they rolled out of the factory. Anyway I wondered if the 201X might be assembled in a similar way that might permit the top to be removed.

In fact it does come apart.    
I removed the screws holding going vertically into the top and then gently tapped the top with a rubber mallet around the edge from inside the cabinet.

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It's probably not really intended to be disassembled since there's evidence that glue was used - but here's one example of weakened 85 year old glue being helpful.

Ready to be stripped:

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Stripping

I used CitriStrip to strip the top and trim. Here it is after stripping:

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Pretty clean - but it looks like maybe the lacquer issue was due to water on the top since the wood there is a bit lighter in color.
I'm hoping that putting back the finish will make the color more uniform and help blend that area. I know there are ways to bleach water damaged wood lighter - but in this case it doesn't seem like that would help.

Sanding Sealer

I lightly sanded the top (hoping that the color might blend better - it didn't much).

Then I gave it a coat of sanding sealer.

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Grain Filler

Finally, I filled the grain with walnut color grain filler. This actually helped blend things better - makes sense since now theres matching color in the grain in both areas.

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Hopefully the toning lacquer will further blend things.