GEC 4655/ BC 4247 Radio 1946

I brought a radio from Kent last week and to make the long journey worth while I took a risk and purchased this radio from the same seller. The large display and minimal design makes it more interesting than most others from this period, 1947, that's when I'm thinking it came from. On the back cover it displays BC 4247 as model number but I can't find any record of this model but the 4655 circuit seems to fit the layout. It may have been produced as a short run for a foreign market as 2 x SW bands are featured rather than LW. Being made just after the end of WWII the UK market would have been on hold while it recovered from the costs of war.

the repair
Anyway it was very dusty so I stripped it all down vacuumed it over washed all the controls and cabinet and cleaned dial window. The SW details were in red and have faded with time I may reprint the front If I can find some yellow paper. The tone control (left side of cabinet) was siezed-up and even after stripping down was still too tight, so I fitted a 50k replacement, the volume control front left was cleaned and I sprayed the band switches (left and right ones are on/off) and the right one also doubles up as SW2 button, centre pair are MW & SW1. But after all this I was amazed that the set came on working, lots of smoothers have been replaced underneath, but not recently, the both dial lights worked and there was even a spare attached to the rear (GEC owned Osram)

As you can see this layout has a LW button whereas my model doesn't. So there will be other small differences in the aerial and oscillator coil areas. The light bulbs had burnt the translucent card mounted to defuse the light so I removed the burnt bits and put some masking tape over the hole. I didn't upload alignment and description details to save space but if you need this let me know and I email it to you in PDF.

Two views of the same unit, the speaker and front were fine after cleaning. Some rust on chassis but not really enough to worry about sanding down and anti-rust painting. The big valve on right is a barreter, basically an early version of a thermistor, but gives off masses of heat. (to protect display lights)

Finally a view of the new tone control, it has a spindle extension fitted that helps when  released so you can remove the set from the cabinet easily. If you need any more help with your repair don't hesitate to email me. Good luck, she's a nice set.