Last year we moved into a new home near Chicago. It was built in 1948, so naturally we are filling it with refinished mid-century furniture and knick knacks. I have several posts in the works on that subject. For now, I’d like to introduce my latest project: restoring a Firestone radio phonograph from 1941.

I picked this radio up at our local thrift shop for a whopping $32. I did not test it before bringing it home, but I was so enthralled that I decided I could figure it out later.

This thing has seen some years. This was not some showpiece kept on a shelf for the neighbors to admire. This radio was used. And I love that.

I did some research and it turns out that Firestone — yes, the tire company — made a series of radios and phonographs in the 1940s and 50s. This particular model is the Firestone Air Chief S-7406-5.

This appliance came out before the age of transistors, so the radio is powered by tubes.

I don’t have a tube tester, so to be on the safe side I just ordered all the tubes in the set. It’s amazing what you can find online these days.

I still haven’t plugged it in and turned it on because the power cord is pretty messed up. I’ll have to replace that for sure. And the motor for the phonograph needs a little cleaning up and lubrication — which I will also need when this project is done. The plastic cover over the dial was warped out of its mind as well, but thankfully the dial itself still looks pretty. Gotta love art deco.

However, the major part of this restoration process will be replacing all the capacitors, or “re-capping” it.

The capacitors, which store an electrical charge when current is passed through them, were mostly made of paper back in the day. They didn’t last very long. Rather than testing each one, I’m going to replace them all with new polymer ones. There’s a lot to get into with capacitors and I won’t bore you with it here. If you really are interested, there’s a great tutorial on antiqueradio.org.

This project is in progress, and I’ll update when I have something to show for my work. In other words, when it turns on.