The AM Forum

I have a Hallicrafters HT-6 cabinet with a lot of small scratches in it. It is a glossy finish like the SR-20 or the newer HQ series of rcvrs.

 It is not worth the time or price of repainting and silk screening (since there are no other parts), but I want to clean it up and use it. Anybody have thoughts on how to minimize the look of the scratches?

What color is it? And how deep are the scratches?

I have been investigating the use of waxes to fill in areas where paint was been lost. Perhaps a crystal wax will work, if the scratch has not penetrated the paint surface. Perhaps a pigment of the same color of the radio's paint job could be added to a clear wax; a polishing with this colored wax could help fill in those scratches.

I've recently freshened up a really raw looking etched-and-painted (like military radio name tags) power supply panel. The aluminum has severe white oxide blooming. After a scrubbing with pure isopropyl alcohol to remove the oxide, I applied a black carnuba shoe polish, to fill in the roughened areas. The panel looks far better now - not perfect - but better. The polish readily filled in the rough areas were the oxide had been.

David Goncalves
W1EUJ

I've used kiwi black, to touch up older transformers.. works ok and smell grand.....   Depending on the severity of scratches you might be able to use auto polish. Turtle Wax makes "Color Cure Car Polish" wich is a pigmented polish designed to hide scratches. Green car, green polish... It works ok.... deep nicks or gouges maybee not, but yous dont wanna do a full make over...   klc

A sharpie works great on black radios.

Meguiars Scatch-X is good for very fine scratches.