Westinghouse Model H-417TS Plastic Radio (1954)
This jaunty little table radio is in flawless condition and it works like a champ.
My wife found it for me while traveling home from a conference. She's crazy
about 1950s furniture with wire legs, so this set practically jumped off
the shelf into her hands! It didn't require a bit of work, other
than some polish to bring out the glow on its dazzling face.
As you can see from the interior view, it uses five all-glass miniature
tubes. From left to right in this photo, they are types 35W4, 12BE6,
12BA6, 12AV6, and 50C5. The tubes all bear the Westinghouse Reliatron name and appear to be factory originals.
The big flat tuning knob is attached directly to the axle of the variable capacitor.
Direct-drive tuners are finicky to use if the knob is small, but
this large knob gives plenty of leverage, making tuning easy.
You can see some family similarities between this radio and
my Westinghouse H-496P4 tube portable,
which was made two years later. Both faceplates create a beautifully
radiant effect with rows of clear plastic bars.
While the 1940s
saw lots of dark, fairly restrained radio designs, radios of
the 1950s seem almost jubilant by comparison, as modern plastics
encouraged designers to experiment with
new forms and colors.
Another feature shared by these Westinghouse radios is the copper-plated
metal chassis, which is ingeniously
folded to carry lots of components in a small space. The chassis also
uses tabs and rivets to attach components, a measure that reduced
manufacturing costs, but didn't make repairs any easier.
For
example, look at the audio output transformer, visible to the right
in the interior view. Its right side is attached to the chassis with a rivet
and the left side slips under a little metal slot. To replace it, I guess you
would have to drill out the old rivet and attach the replacement
with a new rivet or a screw. Not a big deal, but it
seems like a harbinger of late 20th-century "disposable" society, where
electronic items are often thrown out rather than repaired.
This model came in maroon as well as ivory plastic. On page 228 of
the Bunis collector guide (4th ed.), you can see what looks like
the same radio, identified at model H-418TS.
The speaker in this radio is mounted a bit askew, although the
factory wiring obviously hasn't been disturbed, and the speaker
bears the Westinghouse part number. I suppose there's some good
reason why it was done this way, although it looks odd.
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