[Hallicrafters] Info on restoring a steel chassis

[WA1KBQ at aol.com]

Cadmium plating is getting difficult to find  these days due to expense and 
labor intensive effort required to maintain tanks  at operating levels and new 
environmental rules but it is still out there if you  look. Most of the 
industry has turned to zinc in place of formerly used cadmium  but zinc will not 
look right if being faithful to the original is your goal.  There is a firm not 
far from me that still does cadmium and I have  used them to successfully re 
plate SX-88 chassis and parts. I will tell you  there is nothing like doing a 
restoration that includes fresh plating and proper  replication of finishes! 
There are a lot of options available depending on  degree of decay and amount of 
effort you wish to apply. If the surface is rusted  you have to decide how 
involved you want to get with it. If the equipment is not  rare it might be 
easier to find a substitute. If this is not feasible then you  are looking at 
removing everything from the chassis for grinding, polishing and  refinishing at a 
plating shop or mask everything off with suitable protection  and go after it 
with an assortment of wire brushes, sand paper and Dremel tools.  Actually, 
with the proper tools it is often not difficult to remove everything  from the 
chassis. It helps a bunch to have a good de-soldering gun such as a  Goot or a 
Hakko 808 because it makes it much easier and quicker to simply suck  the 
solder from a joint and untie component leads to disassemble the circuit  without 
burning everything up. I would remove parts from the top of the chassis,  
drill rivets and remove the harness with tube sockets as an assembly. If you  
decide to mask everything off for protection where needed and by  applying various 
steps you can somewhat achieve a polished steel surface  that will look a lot 
better than it did before but the cadmium will be long  gone. I have also 
seen chassis painted afterwards and while it no longer looks  original at least 
it returns the equipment to service and looks presentable  again. I have a 
restored Breting 12 here that I obtained from a fussy electrical  engineer. The 
component layout, lead dress and workmanship was impeccable to the  point I wish 
I could display his work but the original chrome plated chassis  obviously 
did not survive and had been sanded polished and carefully painted  silver. The 
quality of the rest of his work far outweighed the appearance  of the chassis 
to me; I have accepted it and am keeping it as it  is.

Regards, Greg  




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