I have a Roberts DAB radio with a traditional style case It seems to be covered in some fake leather or suede effect stuff with a very thin plastic skin on some powdery cork-like substance.
The plastic is shedding, it's really badly made. I thought I might get a second hand faulty one on eBay and swap the innards, but they all seem to have the same problem.
I can fairly easily remove the plastic coating, but how could I seal the crumbly substrate?
Cheers
PVA?
It depends which traditional style it is. The only Roberts I can think of which fits the description has, I think, a fake leather cover over something like I know as hardboard- a 'cross' between wood and cardboard, often found in back of cheap furniture etc.
You could try the stuff intended to stablise rotten wood. It is a thin resin like liquid you paint on, it soaks in, sets hard, bonding the fibres together. I think Ronseal make it.
Brian Reay pretended :
I would suggest that would be my favoured substance to work, as well.
Years ago I took my mums old radio and built a plywood case with teak bvenner in it and some tygan fret loudspeaker cloth. That lasted another ten years I think
Thanks. As it happens, when I peel off the plastic coating there's a layer, maybe 0.5mm thick of very soft brown powdery stuff - I think it might have been the 'leatherette' and probably was originally bonded to the plastic skin.
That scrapes away easily with a penknife blade and underneath is something harder - maybe hardwood maybe MDF - with a grain or fabric-like patterning. I can easily get down to that and paint it. Given it's not going to be subject to much wear and tear, I guess most paints would work?
Looking on the interweb shows that this is a common problem with these radios. Roberts used to have a very good name, I suppose they were bought out and, well, usual story.
The little demon on my shoulder is telling me that I could buy new for much less time than it's costing me. He just doesn't understand.
Cheers
Roberts were great in the old days, the one I bought to take to university in 1967 served me well for many years afterwards. Some time in the 90's I bought a Roberts DAB radio from John Lewis. It was total crap.
Did your Roberts model in 1967 have the turntable on the bottom so that you could orientate for best signal?
Their second generation was even worse, all the knobs and handles were covered in a kind of rubberised material and after a couple of years this goes sticky and leaves black itchy stuff on your skin or gets jammed into any receptacle you put it in. This substance is being used everywhere, do not these people realise it is rubbish. I remember the old Tandy walkman cases were like you describe, ie, fake leather that cracked and fell to bits. Bah humbug. Brian
We have several modern Roberts Radios.
I won the first DAB one in a Classic FM competition. I?d didn?t even remember entering and it turned up. They have them specially made ( or did) with a Preset Classic FM button.
We also got a couple of iStreams (i94?). They not only do DAB, FM, but Internet radio, and DLNA.
We find them all very good. Sound quality is fine, given they are portables etc. Reception is good.
I especially like the Internet Radio and DLNA function on the i94. There are a few classical Internet stations I like and the DLNA is ideal to listen to my media server.
I also have an old Pure One Flow. It also has the Internet/DLNA capability but there matt covering is peeling. It has an odd finish. The basic case is normal, hard, plastic. It looks like they applied a matt, rubber like, coating to it, which is now coming of.
Yes, I think it did. I had forgotten about that.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.