I purchased this Emerson off e-Bay a few months ago.  This is one of those really cool Ingraham cabinets, and this one is sort of hard to come by.  It's one of the "bent wood" style cabinets that really doesn't have a flat surface on it.

The radio has quite a few chips in the case -- mostly on the top, but also a few on the front.  The knobs are wrong, and the finish is in horrible shape.  The chassis looks pretty clean and nice.

The radio will need to be stripped, have the damage to the case fixed, and then be re-finished.  Once done, it should be a fantastic looking radio!

After a few too many cycles of priming and spot fixing, here we are painting the radio.  It's sort of a "winter white" or off-white.  I laid on quite a few thin coats of paint over the span of 20-30 minutes.  I didn't get any runs, so it should turn out ok.  This is sort of a strange view...the radio is sitting atop a brick so that it's entirely off the paper below.

I'll need to let this sit for a few days and cure before doing anything else.   I'll probably sand it out a bit, then shoot a clear coat over the top.  I still have to do the grille bars as well, plus clean everything else up.

Here's the case with some spot putty used to fill in divots, chips, etc.  Because the case was wood, it did accumulate some damage over time.  Spot putty is easy to use -- goes on quickly, dries fast, very easy to sand.  I guess it's mostly used in the auto repair business, and can be found in auto supply places or the auto aisle of hardware stores.  It's usually located near the bondo and other body products.

Once the putty has hardened, the case is sanded again, then primed.  You can then look at the case, see if there are any areas that need more work, re-apply putty, sand again, etc.  Repeat the cycle until the case looks great and is ready for the final coat.  I've picked our a nice off-white for the final coat, which will hopefully go on in the next few days.  I still need to take a look at the grille bars as well (it was easier to take them off than leave them on).

The photo to the right shows the case being primed.  This is just cheap krylon primer, nothing fancy.  I can already tell from looking at this photo that I'll need to do a little more filling around the knob holes, as you can still see some wear there.

I imagine it will take a few cycles of priming and spot repair before the case is ready.  It's been a few years since I've done any work like this, so hopefully I won't screw it up too bad.

Here's the Cri Cri radio after a quick wipedown with some stripper.  The brown paint came off quite easily, revealing what one would expect....the radio was originally white.

Now...the stripper did not touch the white paint.  Hmm.  In this situation, it may actually be easier to simply sand down the original paint a bit, then re-spray with something new.  It looks like an off-white, so that shouldn't be a big problem.  There's a few dings and divots in the wood, so maybe I'll fill those in with some wood putty first.  Sand it, prime it, paint it...should be easy, right?

I picked up this radio off e-Bay France a few weeks ago.  It's small enough that shipping wasn't a concern. 

There really aren't any identifying marks on it, although it has a stylized name that appears to be "Cri Cri" on the dial.....so we'll go with that.

As you can see, it's a tad rough.  Don't know if the knobs are right, and the radio has clearly been painted at least twice.  I think the original color is white, and someone slapped a coat of brown paint on the radio after the fact.  The dial is all there...just a piece of plastic.  Some tubes are missing, but they're US-style tubes, so that shouldn't be a problem.  A schematic?  Well, maybe we can figure that out later..