Edison Grille Clothe

[Victrolacollector]

I have a Edison B-19 Chalet and a Amberola 30, what was the color and texture of the original grille clothes for these machines?

[Valecnik]

probably olive green silk on the DD and brownish orange on the Amb. Someone on eBAY is selling some very nice silk replacements.

[De Soto Frank]

What wood is in your B-19 ?

[Victrolacollector]

The Chalet B-19 is natural or maple color.

[De Soto Frank]

I don't know how relevant this is to the B-19 Chalet, but I have two C-19 "Chippendale", one in Mahogany, the other in Golden Oak.

The Mahogany machine has its original grille-cloth, a gold silk "chintz". Over 90 years, it is beginning to tatter, and has taken-on a slightly greenish tint, but was definitely "gold" when new. Just a plain square weave, no pattern, no "texture"... just a very tight square weave.


The oak machine has traces of what appear to be the original grille-cloth, a green material, not olive.

[marcapra]

I have a B-19 Chalet in unusually good original condition. It has what I believe to be the original grille cloth. It is an extremely thin, see through, warm brown color. For replacing your grille cloth, a brown or golden brown silk should work, but beware of sellers on Ebay that claim that their cloth is silk! The guy who is selling the Edison grille cloth on Ebay is advertising them as being silk. I bought some and determined that they are not really silk. The way I found out is I bought the olive green cloth for my Amberola 75. Since the traces of the original cloth looked like a darker green, I bought some green dye and cooked the cloth in the dye water for about 30 minutes. After dyeing the cloth and washing it, there was no change in color. The dye maker warned in the directions that it will not dye synthetic cloth.

[Victrolacollector]

Oops I just bought some from him.

[marcapra]

Well, if you like the color as is, it might be fine. You just can't dye it or adjust the color. I just looked at the other grille cloth sellers, but no others say theirs are silk. One seller even admits that his are made from rayon. Does anyone actually sell authentic grille cloth that Edison would have put on his machines?

[startgroove]

I have two C-19's. One in Honey Oak, serial number 137523, which had a brownish gold grille cloth. It was difficult to match (a portion of it, which was glued to the grille frame, came off easily and showed what I believed to be the original unfaded color underneath). I found a closely matching radio grille cloth on Ebay. The other is in Mission Oak, serial number 141421. It also had the original grille cloth, fairly intact. A hidden portion of it showed it to be a medium olive green. We got one on Ebay which was is a shade lighter, but similar grain/texture. Cheers, Russie

[Victrolacollector]

I think the natural color (looks like orange maple) B-19 is a hard color to match for grill cloths. I rather had the rouge color machine, but again for the rarity, price and condition, it was good.