[Vintage-Radio] Two more HRO questions

[Donald Chester]

>1) I want to refinish the dial.  I've worked on these dials successfully 
>before, but this one seems to be very tight on the shaft.  After removing 
>the setscrews, is there a trick to getting the dial off?
>
>2) The dial skirt seems to have a sort of greenish or coppery cast.  Was it 
>originally black?

I would try liquid wrench or WD-40.  Be careful. It is easy to score the 
shaft by letting the setscrew slip on the shaft while it is still tightened, 
and that makes it even harder to get off.  The only solution I ever found 
was to gently but firmly pull on the shaft with a rocking motion after 
applying the solvent. It can try your patience, but I always managed to 
eventually get it off.   Make sure the set screw is completely removed 
before trying to remove the dial.  Early sets had one set screw.  Later 
models had two set screws spaced 90 degrees from each other.

The early models had a bare german silver dial.  Later models had a black 
dial.  I have seen some with sort  of a hammertone grey dial.

The ones with the bare german silver dial had black painted chassis, round 
if cans, and the early ones had a 0-5 S-meter instead of 0-9.  The later 
models had black dials and the chassis was painted grey, and the if cans 
were rectangular in shape.  I don't think all the changes occurred at the 
same time, so you may see some receivers with black dial, but black chassis 
and round if cans.