[gary rabbitt]

Hi Jerm.

I have a 40-180. and as far as I know, it has it's original "cloth" still installed. You might note that the grille bars are very close together, so not much of the cloth is seen.

I think that Philco may not have used a fancy, patterned cloth for this model. Ron can correct me if this is wrong. But when I removed the speaker board for the refinish, it appeared to be "non molested" and original.


I got the set about 15 yrs ago from the original owner back in California, and the whole set looked like it had never been worked on, but I did refinish it. The owner said he never had it in for servicing or anything.

I seen that the cloth covering the speaker was a kind of gauze or cheesecloth type of material. It was evenly spaced threads, and dyed a reddish brown color.
I tried to take a photo just now, and you can see how much of the cloth is visible. Not much. Stand back from your set. You can see that not much of the speaker board can be seen.

The photo of the set on Ebay had spaces on the sides of the bars so they used a fancier cloth.

I would not worry about something from grillecloth.com unless you want to. but I'd search some local fabric/yardage stores and you should be able to find something like this. Even if it's white you can dye it. Maybe something with a tight pattern , but not a fancy design would work

I don't know the proper name of this type of cloth, as cheesecloth is not really evenly spaced. It's not burlap as this is a lot thinner.

Here are the photos.
   
   
   




Hope this helps, and good luck!
Gary.