Erres KY585 radio (1959)

Actually, I didn't want this radio. It came as part of a combination deal. It was in bad condition: smelling of mold, badly looking corroded brass ornaments, holes in the speaker cloth, chipped paint.

Then all of a sudden, I felt the challenge to make it work again. The many small damaged spots at the front were intriguing: splinters wer struck from the Bakelite case and the paint at the front, the holes in the speaker cloth and speaker, as if someone had been poking a sharp stick at the speaker. There was even a small splinter from the glass tuning dial. I bought it in January 2025 through an Internet second-hand site. It was smelling quite strongly. There was fungus in the cardboard back-panel, in the speaker cloth and generally in the dust inside.

I first treated the cardboard back panel and bottom cover with a bathroom mold cleaning product. That seemed to have some effect: the grey haze covering the letters disappeared mostly. As the cardboard panels were also warped badly as the result of exposure to moist, I squeezed them between a set of boards for three weeks to dry.

The loudspeaker had mold and a number of holes. Someone had tried to repair it using some pieces of curtain, rubber glue and sellotape. It was looking awful. The speaker wires and other wires to the output transformer had been clipped off. The power transformer was rusty. After some inquiries on the Dutch forum on old radios I was offered a replacement loudspeaker and some components of an Erres KY595, a similar radio. I also received an original speaker cloth, old but without holes.

Unfortunately, replacing the speaker cloth didn't go well. The replacement was stained and I tried to wash it thoroughly. The stains were hard to remove and I scrubbed the cloth with ox bile soap. That was too much for the old fabric. Threads broke and again, I had holes in the “new” cloth. When dried, the cloth shrunk and I had to stretch it. To summarise: the delicate replacement cloth was damaged in several ways.

On a Dutch auction site, I found a new cloth that, though being different, did have horizontal golden stripes and the general feel of the original. I decided to drop originality and try to make the radio look good again. Pundits, puritans and know-it-alls may frown upon this but it was my best option. I fixed the cloth to a wooden frame and tensioned it. At my first attempt, I used bone glue because Erres had used this on the original. It turned out to dry too fast to stick to the new cloth. Finally, I used white glue. That is easier to apply but impossible to loosen afterwards.

Then I started with the electronics.

I carefully removed the tuning scale glass and unsoldered the wires to the tone controls that are fixed to the glass. I put aside the glass and tone controls. This way I could get access to the tuning cords and could avoid damage to the glass in the course of the repairs.

I made a temporary connection to bridge the tone control circuits and convey the audio signal to the output amplifier.

I removed all valves and connected the power transformer to mains. It didn't get very warm and the voltages were all ok, so the transformer didn't seem to have any real damage. The isolation between windings is a plastic film, so not very sensitive to moist. I removed most of the rust with a steel brush and then sanding paper. After this, I greased it with WD40 to stop the rust. Then I cleaned the chassis and removed rust spots from the frame of the tuning capacitor using a glass fiber brush.

Reforming the main power supply electrolytic capacitor seemed to go well. The electrolytic near the output transformer was leaky and I replaced it. I was able to reconstruct all the connections to the output transformer and checked it. Then I replaced the paper capacitors. Most of them were really leaky and some of them were in a position to cause damage, such as the capacitor across the output transformer. Fortunately, this model already has number of polyester and ceramic capacitors that did not need to be replaced.

After replacing the valves, I connected the radio to mains and turned it on. I got a very bad hum. It turned out that the reservoir capacitor hadd no capacity. I had checked its leakage current during reforming, but not its capacity afterward. I replaced it.

Now the radio worked! Only, on FM tuning was difficult. The maximum on the tuning indicator did not correspond to the best reception and the sound was distorted.

I tried to align the FM ratio detector and IF transformers, but I could not find a good setting for the ratio detector. Using a test generator with FM, I got a distorted detector curve. I got some tips from the Dutch forum, to check the ceramic capacitors in the ratio detector transformer. These are silver plated ceramic tube capacitors, buth they are not sealed, which makes the silver corrode, especially in moisty conditions. I extracted the detector transformer and measured the capacitors. This gave odd results. I opened the aluminium can and removed the capacitors and found they had partly lost their capacity, indeed. I found replacements that measured ok and fitted in the can.

After this, aligning the detector transformer resulted in a reasonably symmetric curve. Also, the signal was stronger, the sound was much better and the best sound coincided with maximum reading on the tuning indicator,as it should. I aligned the other FM IF transformers and the FM tuner.

After this, I also aligned the AM IF stages.

Now the tuning cords had to be fixed. These were made of cotton or linen and had fallen apart long ago and bits of string were lying all over the chassis when I opened the radio initially. In this mess, it wasn't possible to just replace the strings. The service manual I found on the the NVHR site showed how the tuning strings and the two strings to move the tone control indicator should run. There was one complication though: My KY585 looked different from the manual. The guide wheels for the AM tuning cord on did not correspond to the drawing in the manual. I compared my radio to drawings of other Erres radios and concluded that my KY585 should be from a later series. A production date in 1959 is confirmed by the stamps on the original electrolytic. Comparing the drawings, I was able to solve the puzzle and reconstruct the configuration of the tuning cords and the springs tensioning them.

Then I put the diffusor screen back.

Replacing the tuning scale posed another challenge: the rubber grommets holding the glass were dried out and had almost fallen apart when I removed the glass. I found two replacements, made of PVC. Using a piece of fishing wire, I eased the flange of the grommets through the hole in the glass. I reconnected all eight wires of the tone controls, cleaned the knobs and mounted them. After this, the chassis was looking great and working fine.

Now I had to take care of the Bakelite case. The baffle was already looking well with its fresh new cloth.

I was still wondering why the front was so damaged. When I took a close look of the corroded “golden” (actually varnished brass) ornamental rods, I noticed a 1 mm round hole that only a pointed object landing with impact could have made. I concluded that this radio must have been placed near a dartboard, and that several stray darts had landed on the front, speaker and tuning scale glass.

Time to repair the damage and repaint the front. First, I needed to remove the brass rods. They were fixed by 4 or 5 tabs protuding through the front and bent behind the front. I polished the rods and resoldered some of the tabs that had come loose through my actions.

Polishing made them shine again. After degreasing I applied a spray varnish and left them to dry.

I sanded the front and filled the chipped spots with car paint filler. Then sanded again. I carefully masked the parts that needed to remain brown. I found a half glossy spray paint with the right color and applied the paint. After removing the masking tape and paper, I trimmed away the uneven borders where the paint had crept under the tape.

I was reasonably satisfied with the result so far. Using a felt marker with golden ink, I accentuated the double chevron Erres logo. Using a black marker I made the “ERRES” brand stand out again. Looking quite good.

I mounted the baffle and slid the chassis back in.

This restoration took a few months, but the result was fine. A fresh looking radio that was playing well.