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| Fully restored Pye 1355 - a nice example. |
When I first saw this radio for sale with two brown Bakelite knobs, it looked lost and needing a proper home. So I pointed out this to the seller and he eventually accepted my low bid. When it arrived it was grubby with vinyl covering coming loose, button jamming and intermittent sound, due to dust on the controls and a loose wire wrapped back on the speaker terminal, but otherwise it was working. I just need to source 2 original control knobs give it a clean and a oil over and she'd be fine. In reality vintage knobs of the same type never occur, they hide in collections of 30 or more knobs at high prices or turn up one at a time £10 each. But after many hours of looking using different search words, until I found 5 new 1 1/2 inch wide, but with 'd' clips missing for £6 with free next day post? wow!! The rears were too wide anyway, so I sawed off a chunk and made the hole deeper, the knobs had a slight pink tinge, but it was as close as I could find and I'm happy with the results. The next thing was to wire 2 x LED's in series along with a 160 ohm resistor to the cold side of the on/off switch, fit them either side of the tuning dial, making sure that they don't show from the front.
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| Pye 1355 circuit diagram (1964) |
The set doesn't have any extra features, the 1353 model from the previous year had FM, this set just had a tone button, tape output and a car aerial input. The cabinet is made from wood, and Pye bless 'em were still using cabinet makers, but most competitors in the radio market had switched to plastic moldings by 1964 and this set was a little old fashioned, although the large 8' speaker and heavy cabinet gave it a nice tone, so it suited the older market. Most companies by now were picking up on the off sea pirate market and making smaller more sensitive pocket portables for that teen market.
The radio here showing how the wrong knobs can spoil the look, if you buy on-line or at a market, always make sure it's complete as missing or wrong fascia's can be impossible to find. I removed the years of nicotine stains from the speaker grill with a toothbrush and ammonia cleaning spray. The loose white vinyl covering was re-glued with fast drying Uhu glue and a large sowing needle to push it under the loose area's wiping excess off right away as most glues can take the Finnish off plastic.
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| Arrows showing where I added the two LED's to illuminate the tuning dial, after it was given a good clean. |
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| Two over-long bolts hold the chassis to an 'L' bracket on the sides of the wooden cabinet |
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| wiring for display led's |
When you wire the leds make sure all soldered joins are insulated with plastic sleeve and the cable is tucked away from the RF circuits.
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