Saba 530WL - total restoration

[PJ.]

Hello and welcome to my next renovation project.
I'm sorry for writing in English, but it's still hard for me to write longer texts in German.

For a quite some time I was looking for a missing Saba from a season 35/36 – model 530 or 531 (I'm missing 336, but it's not a priority). I noticed those are really hard to find. Around a month ago I saw an auction with very bad 530WL starting from around 0.25 Euro. Finally I won that auction for 10 Euro – but radio was missing loudspeaker, knobs, transformer and tubes. But even so... I picked up radio from seller who gave me also two bad and partly dismantled chassis from 531WL and 335WL.
I decided on rebuilding the radio as best as I can (I have quite some part collection from Saba radios) – seems like pointless work but I have a soft spot for models from that season – apparently very few people like them.
First, two pictures from the auction:

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About Drehko – it's of course broken but I have a spare one from season 37/38 – they are virtually the same except they are without zinc-pest problem. Brass belt from tuning mechanism is torn and zinc clutch was swollen, but otherwise mechanism is complete (belt tension screws are very important).

First thing I did was to draw a more or less exact „map” of underside of the chassis – radio was repaired many times in the past, so I couldn't trust some of the connections. Then I separated metal parts for galvanization and painting. As it was, additional chassis was in better condition than the original one.

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I also made a list of components in accordance with service manual – I have all necessary resistors but a few of capacitors are missing, tube sockets are all checked and replaced when it was neccessary, polished switching axle and washed all the contact sets, also I managed to make a new tape for tuning mechanism, although from aluminium.

After a week I picked up parts from galvanization, meanwhile I painted chassis and its parts in silver very similar to original shade of paint. So it looks like parts straight from the factory.

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And that is the state of radio now – in the coming days I should start putting it all together but I know it's a long way before radio would play again.

As it is of course there are problems. Especially that I still miss some parts which are:

- amperometer
- loudspeaker
- knobs
- original mains trafo.

I have similar transformer but I'm not sure if it's any good. I have loudspeaker but it's cone is cracked around the edges – those are the problems that maybe can be solved.

But if someone has knobs and amperometer (can be broken, I will repair it), that would be great...


Best regards
Piotr

PS: Please reply in German, I'm still learning.

[holger66]

Hi Piotr,

that´s herculic ! I will follow your further reports.....

Best wishes
Holger

[RE 084]

Hello Piotr,

you made a good job with the chassis, it looks like new.
Maybe you find additional help in the following Forum:
https://radio-bastler.de/forum/index.php
There are some Experts in rebuilding Knobs, if someone has
a "Masterknob".
I´m looking forward for your next report and wish you good luck !

Best regards,
Hans

[PJ.]

Hello,
today a small update - I'm currently working on few projects, so the progress is not so fast. And it takes a while to complete all sorts of parts - screws, washers, good sockets etc.
So during last few days I managed to finish mostly mechanical work on the chassis, with all the coils, sockets switches in place. I gathered all the necessary resistors and capacitors (still yet to be boiled in paraffin wax) and put together main capacitor.
I still need to make rubber parts needed for two-speed scale drive. If everything is in order, that should be my third working scale drive. It's quite simple comparing to the thing I'm working on now.

By the way, somebody has any experience in tuning those Saba ZF filters? It seems that they are glued solid. All four 200cm capacitors are broken inside them so I will replace them, but then I should do a slight tuning of ZF...

So here are the pictures:

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Best regards
Piotr