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Walt Sommers had a lot of correct Ortho cloth supposedly made on the original looms, which have since been scrapped (according to Walt).

A year or two ago, he was clearing out his extra stock of grille cloth.

I bought enough to do one Credenza. (Shoulda bought more)


Looking at the cloth and its weave, it does resemble the fabric used in some mens' suits.

You might check with a local tailor and see if they can provide something similar, like for a summer suit....

I believe the original material was silk ?

The weave is basically square, combined of gold and black threads. The gold threads have a metallic sheen when new.

De Soto Frank wrote:Looking at the cloth and its weave, it does resemble the fabric used in some mens' suits.

You might check with a local tailor and see if they can provide something similar, like for a summer suit....

Zoot suit, you mean?

Actually, I had a summer-weight wool blazer a few years back, that was a lightweight silk-wool blend, whose cloth was the correct weave and weight, but it was green, and had a slight windowpane pattern...

So, there are folks out there looming a similar cloth...

De Soto Frank wrote:Walt Sommers had a lot of correct Ortho cloth supposedly made on the original looms, which have since been scrapped (according to Walt).

A year or two ago, he was clearing out his extra stock of grille cloth.

I bought enough to do one Credenza. (Shoulda bought more)


Looking at the cloth and its weave, it does resemble the fabric used in some mens' suits.

You might check with a local tailor and see if they can provide something similar, like for a summer suit....

I believe the original material was silk ?

The weave is basically square, combined of gold and black threads. The gold threads have a metallic sheen when new.

The original material was a cotton/viscose (rayon) blend.

The reproduction cloth was contracted by John Okonowicz, a radio collector, for his "grillecloth.com" business. John began offering correct grillecloth in the early 1990's, and was for twenty yeasrs a great resource for the hobby. There were thirty or forty varieties available. None of them were absolutely perfect, but two were very close; one was the cloth designed for use on the RCA 100 drum loudspeaker. Same weave and pattern, as the Orthophonic cloth but a very slightly tighter weave, and then there was the sloth designed for the RCA Radiola 24 and Radiola Super VII, which was very close but had a very slight pattern of tight "O's". Okonowicz also made the "small diamonds" grille cloth, as used on the RCA Victor Radiolette of 1931, and also on the 1928-29 Orthophonic Victrolas; the 8-8, 8-9, 8-10, 8-35, 8-36 and 10-35.

The mill that made these excellent reroduction grille cloths was supposedly purchased by an East Asian firm during the Global Financial Crisis and the equipment scrapped.

Over the years I have bought an awful lot of this excellent cloth from John, and have put a back couple Credenza (actually 10-50) sized pieces of the Radiola 24 cloth and the "Small diamonds" cloth (along with a group of other radio grille cloth styles appropriate to late 1920's and early 1930's sets to which I am clinging like grim death.