My brother in law has been hounding me for years for one of my boxes so he could plug his mp3 player in and jam around town. I could never decide which one I wanted to give up so I decided to just buy him one of his own!
After a bit of searching I picked up a Panny RX-5025 that needed a lot of work. Ebay find for a VERY good price.
Before pictures -
Tear down/inside- It was surprisingly good inside. No smoke stains or gunk. Bit of cleaning and replaced 4 caps and 1 resistor and cleaned out all the pots.
Initial masking (Forgot to take pictures of the rest of the masking for the grills. One thing that got me when I took it all apart was that the grills are actually part of the box itself and are plastic. Was quite the task getting them masked off.
These were actually pictures I took to remind myself of the dial lettering on the top for later dry transfer/rub but it shows what I had to work with
I initially tried to clean up the windows with some goof off but ended up destroying them. As it turns out, goo gone and goof off will melt plastic windows
Since I couldnt have that I went and bought some .93 lexan and cut one out. The old window was molded with a nice route and bevel so I used a dremel sanding bit and slowly routed out a groove to match the old one (I ruined 3 pieces of lexan as I got this technique down, not exactly the easy process I had expected)
The remainder of the pictures are the finished product. Painting process included dawn soap bath, 100/150/320 sanding followed by another bath. One light coat of primer followed by a 900 grit rub down. Finished off with 4 light coats of Rustoleum Painters Touch Metallic Aluminum for the front panel, Krylon Gloss black for the grills and Rustoleum Painters Touch Satin Granite for the rear housing.
I still need to do the dry transfer lettering but it's on order and wont be here for Christmas. Even without it I think my brother in law will be very pleased. Out of all the boxes that I have, I would have to say that this is one of the best sounding boxes I have. It will CRANK! and everything is super clean. Normally I have to dampen a bit on the inside of the majority of these cheaper boxes to get a clean sound but this thing has some great natural resonance.
Btw, this is my first resto in about a year due to having other obligations but I've got the bug again. Expect to see more soon!
After a bit of searching I picked up a Panny RX-5025 that needed a lot of work. Ebay find for a VERY good price.
Before pictures -
Tear down/inside- It was surprisingly good inside. No smoke stains or gunk. Bit of cleaning and replaced 4 caps and 1 resistor and cleaned out all the pots.
Initial masking (Forgot to take pictures of the rest of the masking for the grills. One thing that got me when I took it all apart was that the grills are actually part of the box itself and are plastic. Was quite the task getting them masked off.
These were actually pictures I took to remind myself of the dial lettering on the top for later dry transfer/rub but it shows what I had to work with
I initially tried to clean up the windows with some goof off but ended up destroying them. As it turns out, goo gone and goof off will melt plastic windows
Since I couldnt have that I went and bought some .93 lexan and cut one out. The old window was molded with a nice route and bevel so I used a dremel sanding bit and slowly routed out a groove to match the old one (I ruined 3 pieces of lexan as I got this technique down, not exactly the easy process I had expected)
The remainder of the pictures are the finished product. Painting process included dawn soap bath, 100/150/320 sanding followed by another bath. One light coat of primer followed by a 900 grit rub down. Finished off with 4 light coats of Rustoleum Painters Touch Metallic Aluminum for the front panel, Krylon Gloss black for the grills and Rustoleum Painters Touch Satin Granite for the rear housing.
I still need to do the dry transfer lettering but it's on order and wont be here for Christmas. Even without it I think my brother in law will be very pleased. Out of all the boxes that I have, I would have to say that this is one of the best sounding boxes I have. It will CRANK! and everything is super clean. Normally I have to dampen a bit on the inside of the majority of these cheaper boxes to get a clean sound but this thing has some great natural resonance.
Btw, this is my first resto in about a year due to having other obligations but I've got the bug again. Expect to see more soon!
