Philips 543A

 

Here are the components I replaced on the way to getting the set back into good order. (The coil of wire is the old mains lead.)
Unusually, this set needed a full set of valves. It's more common to only have to replace one or two - contrary to popular opinion, valves are surprisingly robust and a lot of radios from as far back as the 1930s still soldier on quite happily on their original valves. But not this radio, perhaps because a long time ago the mains selector had been set to the wrong voltage...
Apart from the dial lamp (in the middle of the coil of wire), the rest of the components I replaced are capacitors of various kinds. The only interesting point has to do with the big silver one. This lives on top of the chassis (if you look back at the previous picture you'll see it at the right-hand end, standing upright). My usual practice is to replace anything that's easily visible with an authentic-looking substitute, and when you look at the next picture you'll see I've done that here. (Actually, the replacement is identical to the one I took out. Ah, the joy of having large stocks of components...!)

Vintage Vet

Repair and Restoration of Valve Audio and Radio