My latest purchase arrived today: a Sharp GF-555E, picked up for £50 on eBay.
It's generally in reasonable shape, the biggest problems being...
Tape decks working in fast forward only
All slider controls crackly
Recording control door doesn't stay closed and sags on hinge
Small piece of metal trim missing on left of cassette door
I found a service manual online here:
https://elektrotanya.com/sharp_gf-555h_e.pdf/download.html
(Note that it's one of those websites that makes you do a Captcha, then wait a minute or so before the download link appears)
... which made getting the casing open very straightforward.
First job was to get some contact cleaner into all the sliders and switches. That made a huge difference to just about every control. No more crackling and every slider now moves easily and smoothly.
The tape deck issues seem to be a result of the take-up spindles being driven by a friction roller from the capstan; the rubber on both capstans having deteriorated into a sort of black slime. There was also a foot or so of tape wrapped up in Deck 1, a previous victim of the failed take-up drive!
The information posted by jimmyjimmy19702010 here:
http://boomboxery.com/forum/index.php/topic/24631-sharp-gf-555-restoration/
... proved invaluable, so Jimmy, if you happen to read this, many thanks!
I've cleaned all the black slime out and ordered some 2mm ID/5mm OD tubing, once that arrives I'll reassemble the decks and see how well it works.
The rest of the deck mechanisms seem fine, even the pinch rollers and belts are intact and in decent condition.
The door will be more awkward, I'm thinking of using some slim neodymium magnets to hold the door closed, provided that I can install them unobtrusively. If I can find them in suitable sizes, I'll glue a pair behind the casing and another pair in place of the rubber pads on the door.
The missing trim should be easy enough to replace, as long as I can get hold of a suitably thin piece of aluminium. It'll just need brushing with a wire wheel to give a similar finish to the rest of the trim, cutting to size, and gluing in place.
Beyond that it's just a matter of giving the whole thing a good clean. I've done a few small test areas and it looks like it'll come up quite nicely. The sticker on the door has of course been removed ("ablemesh accepted here", what's that all about?).
The build quality of this machine is remarkably good. The tape mechanism in particular is very robust (other than those rubber capstan rollers), the sliders have a really nice smooth feel now that they're clean, and the whole box has a solid and very heavy feel to it.
It goes VERY loud, too. Probably the loudest box I currently own. Not blown away by the sound quality, mind. It's got a rather harsh, blaring sound to it; too much emphasis on upper-midrange, perhaps. It can at least be compensated for to some degree using the tone controls. But I do prefer the sound from some of my other boxes: the Ferguson 3T13 (JVC RC-656 AKA) sounds smoother, as does the Ferguson RC-01 (rebadged Korean copy of a Hitachi 3D box), and the Aiwa NSX-230 (in fairness, the Aiwa is probably 15 years newer and physically much bigger).
It's generally in reasonable shape, the biggest problems being...
Tape decks working in fast forward only
All slider controls crackly
Recording control door doesn't stay closed and sags on hinge
Small piece of metal trim missing on left of cassette door
I found a service manual online here:
https://elektrotanya.com/sharp_gf-555h_e.pdf/download.html
(Note that it's one of those websites that makes you do a Captcha, then wait a minute or so before the download link appears)
... which made getting the casing open very straightforward.
First job was to get some contact cleaner into all the sliders and switches. That made a huge difference to just about every control. No more crackling and every slider now moves easily and smoothly.
The tape deck issues seem to be a result of the take-up spindles being driven by a friction roller from the capstan; the rubber on both capstans having deteriorated into a sort of black slime. There was also a foot or so of tape wrapped up in Deck 1, a previous victim of the failed take-up drive!
The information posted by jimmyjimmy19702010 here:
http://boomboxery.com/forum/index.php/topic/24631-sharp-gf-555-restoration/
... proved invaluable, so Jimmy, if you happen to read this, many thanks!
I've cleaned all the black slime out and ordered some 2mm ID/5mm OD tubing, once that arrives I'll reassemble the decks and see how well it works.
The rest of the deck mechanisms seem fine, even the pinch rollers and belts are intact and in decent condition.
The door will be more awkward, I'm thinking of using some slim neodymium magnets to hold the door closed, provided that I can install them unobtrusively. If I can find them in suitable sizes, I'll glue a pair behind the casing and another pair in place of the rubber pads on the door.
The missing trim should be easy enough to replace, as long as I can get hold of a suitably thin piece of aluminium. It'll just need brushing with a wire wheel to give a similar finish to the rest of the trim, cutting to size, and gluing in place.
Beyond that it's just a matter of giving the whole thing a good clean. I've done a few small test areas and it looks like it'll come up quite nicely. The sticker on the door has of course been removed ("ablemesh accepted here", what's that all about?).
The build quality of this machine is remarkably good. The tape mechanism in particular is very robust (other than those rubber capstan rollers), the sliders have a really nice smooth feel now that they're clean, and the whole box has a solid and very heavy feel to it.
It goes VERY loud, too. Probably the loudest box I currently own. Not blown away by the sound quality, mind. It's got a rather harsh, blaring sound to it; too much emphasis on upper-midrange, perhaps. It can at least be compensated for to some degree using the tone controls. But I do prefer the sound from some of my other boxes: the Ferguson 3T13 (JVC RC-656 AKA) sounds smoother, as does the Ferguson RC-01 (rebadged Korean copy of a Hitachi 3D box), and the Aiwa NSX-230 (in fairness, the Aiwa is probably 15 years newer and physically much bigger).
