[Hallicrafters] Speaker values

[W4AWM at aol.com]

My personal opinion on all this paint matching is that most of these 
companies had no idea that folks would be amassing large quantities of their equipment 
and therefore were not concerned that batches of cabinets would match. For 
example, if they painted a large number of R-46B speakers, they would want to be 
sure that at least the dark gray would match the current batch of receivers 
which the speakers were to be paired with. If you bought a receiver one year 
and decided a year later to buy a speaker, the chance of an exact paint match 
could be a tossup.

I have a large collection of the SR series transceivers and similar cabinets 
such as the
 SX-117. Inside in normal room light, they match perfectly. As you are aware, 
Hallicrafters appearently did not prime these cabinets, either and the paint 
flakes off just by looking at it. I removed all the rigs from their cabinets 
and was taking them to be bead blasted before having them custom painted. When 
I had them all together outside in the sun before loading them in the vehile, 
I was shocked to find that there were no less than 4 different shades of gray 
on the various cabinets. Some of this was undoubtedly due to factory 
mis-matching, but you also have to consider the things happen to paint over many years. 
Not the least being in a smoking environment, atmospheric exposure and 
storage methods. 

The choice, therefore, is to leave everything in an "as found" condition 
complete with scratches, dings, rust, chipped paint, etc, or have it 
professionally blasted and painted and screened in the closest color match you can get. 
Even then, If you don't have all your cabinets of a certain color done at the 
same time, there will still be some variation, regardless of how professional the 
painter is and how close the formulas are matched.

By the way, these SR cabinets cost about $100.00 each for the complete 
process but the new paint is hard as a rock and the painter did an outstanding job 
of matching the "blotchy' original paint jobs and color.

73, 

 John,  W4AWM