Here it is. It found it at a flea market for audio hobbyists.
It looked awful. Love at first sight! 🙂
First step was to tear it down (which was a small adventure in itself), replace all electrolytic caps and the other caps as well. Then I had to replace most resistors as well since they had drifted away.
All tubes were ok!
Mechanically it was not too bad. It uses an idler wheel between the motor and the capstan wheel and that was intact. Also there is no normal belts in this one, it uses a spring belt instead. The only problem left is one of the pins in the center of the spool holders probably got hit by something heavy at some point and was somewhat bent. This makes the left spool wiggle just a little during playback and….that can’t be good. 🙂
In spite of that it actually sounds nice! A real 50’s experience. It’s not hifi, of course, but it must have been more than needed in 1955.
Today it got a new set of felt pads for the heads. The old ones didn’t feel as they should and some tapes didn’t play well since the pads were not slippery enough. I hope this helped.
Old pad