The AM Forum

I bought one more BC-348-R

It is prestine original, I am the 1'st owner after Army, guys who sold it just removed it from an old Duglas plane! What a find!

I am going to restore it as totally original. I heard that a wrinkle paint spray may be bought somewhere, do you have any ideas?

http://www.wavebourn.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3069#3069

Tolly, that is a really clean radio. Wow! Antique Electronic Supply used to carry crinkle spray paint
http://www.tubesandmore.com/. When you get your license, talk to W8VYZ Astubula Bill. He has been running a BC-348 with a sideband slicer attached for as long as I have known him. What would really tickle your fancy, a few years ago, their was an article in Electric Radio where during WWII, the USSR kept a couple of B-25(?) bombers. They then made a Soviet version of the venrable BC-348. Everything seemed the same except for the Cryllic lettering. You may be able to enlighten us about that Tolly.

Nice catch Tolly. You are going to have a BC348 museum soon!

I know the story now, Mike!

Stalin asked "To make the same". It means "copy or die". However, nobody wanted to die so the complete copy was made. Fortunately, for some real improvements approved by Stalin there were hard to kill, so receiver got also a remote control. It had rotating transformers, selsyns, stepping relays inside. I have the photo of it and schematics. Schematics is exactly the same, plus remote control.

http://www.wavebourn.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2170#2170



Thanks Joe!

This one will be really museum thing, I am going to restore it to the "original" state and carefully tune.

By the way, I've found an interesting article about how to paint crincle. Also, guys describe how they repainted exactly BC-348-R! :)

http://www.hvra.org/wrinkle.htm

I've been saved from Tolly's fate -- hopelessly addicted to BC-348's.  I went to eBay to troll around and discovered it would jeopardize national security to let a BC-348 fall into my hands.  I got this message:

Unfortunately, access to this particular category or item has been blocked due to legal restrictions in your home country. Based on our discussions with concerned government agencies and eBay community members, we have taken these steps to reduce the chance of inappropriate items being displayed.  ...

This must be a better receiver than I thought.  My home country is US of A, born in Bozeman, Montana. But here in Silicon Valley I have friends from all over.  Maybe one of my French, Chinese, Vietnamese, Russian, or Indian friends can buy one for me and sneak it to me clandestinely. Or maybe eBay is doing me a favor.  Look what's happened to Tolly.

Jon,
It is really strange why Ebay assumed you are from country where listening on some bands that are covered by the BC-348 is restricted. I know that Soviets and Germans had such restrictions, but I am not sure if they have them now.
Sometimes when I browse feedback links and "see all items for sale by seller" I discover that from now I am on a foreign Ebay and see prices in Euros, Pounds of Sterlings, etc... May be it is the cause?

By the way, did you want to bid on exactly the same receiver I won? ;)

Tolly - the best black wrinkle paint is available at a Harley-Davidson dealership, it's their own brand.  Tried 'em all, this is the best.

Good luck with the resto.  73 John

Thanks John! I'll share results! :D

By the way, what about this one?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7949901151&category=40017&sspagename=WD1V

Tolly,
       Congradulations on a really good find. It appears that your "new" BC-348-R is original and unmolested. It even has the dynamotor in it!

Most BC-348's have been turned into "Ham Salad" by a myriad of modifications like adding S-Meters, solid state supplies, all kinds of things that you could imagine.

The mating transmitter to a BC-348 is a "ART-13". If you ever get your Amateur License you'll probably want to look for one. They used a single 813 modulated by a pair of 811's, and had a mechanical autotune system. More about that later.

Now that you have two BC-348's you may want to consider running them in "dual diversity" if the mood strikes you and you get them both operating.

Let me know how you make out with your new receiver and the very best of luck with it.

Tolly- in the late 40's Hallicrafters sold an A.C. power supply kit for the BC348 that bolted up in place of the dynamotor. my father put one in his back then, and it rocks on to this day. i have seen them in quite a few "converted" BC348's over the years, so they must have sold well. then again dynamotors are COOL too. one of these days i have to get pictures of my ART-13/BC348 station up on here. enjoy your find! on a good night you can get some really great music coming over from the states and pipe it over the interphone to the crew....UH OH!!! BANDITS AT 12 O"CLOCK!!!

Tolly - never tried that brand.   AS I recall a can from the HD dealer is about $8.  Could have gone up by now, last one I bought was about 3 years ago.  KRYLON wrinkle paint SUCKS.  DOn't bother with that.

73 John

Tolly,
        Here's a link to a complete BC-348-R manwell:
        http://www.nj7p.org/manuals/bc-348r/bc-348r.html

Tolly,
I bought wrinkle finish from Eastwood restorations.  www.eastwood.com
To do a cabinet right you should strip it to bare metal.  I did not use a primer on the aluminum cabinet of my LM21.
Take the cabinet outside in the bright hot sun and let it heat up.  Waiting for the summer would be a good thing.  When the cabinet is hot spray the first coat sort of thin and let it flash off a bit.  Follow that with two heavy coats leaving some time between coats.  Heavy is key.
Do this all while the cabinet is still in the sun.
Next get your heat gun and start blowing hot air onto an area.  You will see the paint start to wrinkle.  Use the heat gun and work the area and "grow" until you have heated and wrinkled the entire cabinet.  This will take you about 5-10 minutes.
For the next 3 days do not touch any of your paint work.  The outside of the paint will feel a little dry but the thick paint against the cabinet is still wet and you will destroy it if you touch it.  I left my LM for about a week before touching it.
You may want to put the cabinet on a board when you spray it so you can bring it inside without touching it.

73
Tom
W2ILA

Tom, you don't have to mess with multiple coats with HD paint.  ANd as the BC348 is aluminum, it should be primed with primer meant for alumunum or it will just flake off in a relatively short time.

Here's what you do with HD wrinkle paint.  Prime, bake, clean, spray one fairly heavy coat of HD paint,  bake in 150 degree oven for a couple hours, yer done.  Let it cool and sand off where the lettering is and assemble the radio.

73 John

Hi Tolly,

I am in the process of restoring a BC-348-H to run from the dynamotor.  I had to repaint my cabinet and front panel.  I came across an article with some tips on applying wrinkle paint that I used on the front panel.  http://www.hvra.org/wrinkle.htm
I found some Plasti-Kote black wrinkle at a local auto parts store and have so far had good results.  I did not prime the fromt panel as it would add to the thickness of the paint and make uncovering the lettering more difficult.  The panel did not originally have primer on it and seemed to have been chemically etched to get the paint to adhere.  When I stripped the original paint off, the aluminum had a darker lightly pitted finish almost like parkerizing.  What Tom says about allowing the paint to dry for a couple of days before handling is good advice.  I started to sand the paint off of the lettering the day after I painted the panel and noticed that it was not completely dry throughout.  The cabinet itself was primed originally with what appeared to be zinc chromate.  I am waiting for the weather to warm up so I can start priming and painting the cabinet.  I just finished filling in a bunch of ventilation holes that a previous owner had drilled to allow the heat from an internal AC power supply to escape.

You may have already come across this site but James Moorer has some really good scans of original manuals for these sets.  http://www.jamminpower.com/main/bc348.jsp