Retro painted Travler restoration

5/22/2009 7:23:12 AMPeter G. Balazsy

Many of you may remember the painted-Bakelite radios I was producing last year or so.

I was working with a very talented fellow at the time who did the high quality auto-painting work for me. I restored the chassis and he'd do the the painting.
Eventually he couldn't find the time anymore so I started looking around for someone else and in the mean time I concentrated on restoring wood cabinets myself and improving my skills in that area.

I have recently been blessed, inasmuch as I have found a NEW auto-paint airbrush artist who's skills are second to none!

He has jumped on board with both feet and and started off by knocking out 6 drop-dead radio beauties!

His work is flawless with tough-as-nails clear coating over made-to-last auto paint. The colors we've selected are eye-popping too.

Needless to say I am quite pleased with our results and I'm just finishing off the first one here today to show you.

This is a little Ebay find from last year that I re-capped and completely restored the entire chassis. I also re-coned the speaker and after a complete realignment the sensitivity is great all across the BC band and the sound it produces is very pleasing too.

The Hot-Pink and liquid-black colors here are reminiscent of the late 40s to mid 50s. The grill fins were painted with brushed silver to produce a beautiful and fitting touch that has the feel of an automobile grill from that period.

What do you think?

5/22/2009 10:56:53 AMOperadio

Its hard to find a painter with time to do little radios. They can charge out the @#$ for Harley tanks and fenders, and most of our auto refinshers get top dollar at the shops they work for. Hope you can keep him at it, I enjoy your work.

5/22/2009 12:33:08 PMWarren

Very nice work on an other wise plain old looking nothing radio. It's now a one of a kind custom 6 tube radio done in good taste.

5/22/2009 12:56:10 PMuffdaphil

Those silver accents are fabulous- looks like billet aluminum. I had a '59 Rambler station wagon with the exact pink/black tutone.

5/28/2009 7:02:12 AMPeter G. Balazsy

Informational update:

For any of you guys interested in following it...I listed this Travler 5002 on Ebay to start at 10:30pm est/7:30 pst Thursday evening the 28th of May.

I haven't tried listing anything for sale since all the new Ebay feature changes... so I have no idea how it will fare amongst other radios listed.

I selected the "feature first/plus" combo package.. $30 bucks.. just to maybe have a chance to get listed at page top.. sometimes, perhaps...lol

The only thing certain is the charges!..lol