VV-CHIPPENDALE 500

[wjw]

There are four of those threaded anchors on mine. Probably made shipment crating easier. I think all the uprights had them. Never noticed the brackets. Horn mount?

[Player-Tone]

Awesome to see such a rare machine resurface after so many years! I wonder how many of them are still out there?

[Henry]

There are four of those threaded anchors on mine. Probably made shipment crating easier. I think all the uprights had them. Never noticed the brackets. Horn mount?

In shipment, the turntable was secured to the bottom of the cabinet, and the threaded inserts held the bolts that enabled this arrangement. I'm not just guessing about this; the original instructions for my VV-XI describe the set-up: "Turntable will be found fastened to bottom of cabinet."

[estott]

I'll continue posting pics of my progress. The doors are warped, which really brought my spirits down, but since bringing one inside from last night, I've measured a substantial improvement. So I'm more optimistic that these will flatten back out. Possibly just did that from being in the barn during hot/humid days for the estate sale.
All doors are inside now, in my wood-shop. Any ideas on warped doors is appreciated. From my experience, they sometimes go back to normal under a controlled environment. They don't close well, and I confirmed they did close before the sale. So I think this was an acute change, which gives me hope.

Fingers crossed.

Be patient and wait- I've taken furniture out of bars where pieces were so warped they would have broken the veneer, if the veneer hadn't popped off already. After some time in the house they flattened out.

[FloridaClay]

Congrats! A rarity well worth saving.

There are some plating houses that can do the antique gold finish.

Clay

[Jerry B.]

A wonderful and rare machine, well worth the effort of a restoration. Jerry

[FloridaClay]

When I first got my Credenza, which had been in a storage space for decades, one of the doors was quite warped at the bottom and I thought I would have to find a replacement. Slowly it straightened itself once in a climate controlled space and is now perfectly flat. I was very pleasantly surprised, as this was my first encounter with that phenomena.

Clay

[phonogfp]

I had a similar experience with an oak VV-XVI. It had sat in a basement for some time, and the doors overlapped by about ⅛ inch. I bought it anyway, even though there was no possibly way of closing them. After sitting in our family room of a month or so, they returned to normal size and have worked fine ever since.

George P.

[52089]

When I first got my Credenza, which had been in a storage space for decades, one of the doors was quite warped at the bottom and I thought I would have to find a replacement. Slowly it straightened itself once in a climate controlled space and is now perfectly flat. I was very pleasantly surprised, as this was my first encounter with that phenomena.

Clay

There is a wonderful book called The Furniture Doctor by George Grotz which explains everything you'd ever want to know about basic repair and restoration of furniture. His technique for de-warping wood is ridiculously simple - you put it out on the grass, concave side down and the sun will straighten it out quickly. I used this method on an Amberola BVI I had long ago that was not well cared for. The warped parts were put out in the sun on a nice summer day and were back to "normal" within an hour, although Grotz says the process usually takes several hours or more.

[Kirkwood]

Here are a few pics of those back doors and resistor coils on my Electric-motor Chippendale Victrola. Sorry these aren't clearer, but maybe it will give you an idea of what those cabinet knobs look like. Tried to enlarge just the knobs, but the image was just too poor. I snapped these pics to include in a discussion on that previous message board (back in 2007). Forgot these were on my computer until I was hunting for something else this afternoon.