Next came the staining. I used Minwax Early American. The stain got to dry over a few days as the weather was quite humid. After dry weather returned, I did two more rounds of staining, between each stain application, I sanded lightly with #0000 steel wool and wiped the surface clean with a new tack cloth.

The next step was to spray the entire cabinet with clear lacquer. This method gives an antique radio a finish that is authentic. It is not suggested that you use polyurethane or varnish, since the radio manufacturers did not use these. The spray lacquer that I used was Mohawk's satin clear. This is available from Antique Electronic Supply. Before spraying, I lightly sanded the stained surface with #0000 steel wool and wiped off with a 3M tack cloth.. I have had great results with Deft satin lacquer also. This is available in a spray also and is $2.00 cheaper than Mohawk and redily available in stores like Walmart.

After replacing the chassis, I turned my attention to the speaker cloth which was badly ripped. I could not find an exact replacement, but I found a cloth that complimented the bold cabinet design from Grille cloth headquarters. I replaced the missing knobs with the generic brown 30's knobs from Antique electric supply. Not ideal, but they will do until I find the real ones. The cabinet came out pretty good overall, this was my first "real" cabinet restoration. Luckily there was no loose veneer, just pieces missing. I have never had good luck with fixing rippled veneer.

Here's some pictures after the wax polishing and the new grille cloth. Didn't come out too bad...

After all of the tubes were gathered, (they were all missing...) I began to check the power transformer and replace all wax capacitors and measured the resistors. I also looked for any signs of overheating and burns.