A 1928 Bremer Tully De luxe Sliding Door Console Model 7-71
Major Update: At 1:15 PM August 12, 2009 The Bremer Tully played again for the first in at least
60 years. It was a very clear and loud baseball game. Its been a long and difficult restoration, and
it was worth every minute. To hear it play again is an emotion thats hard to describe. Over 2000
man hours have gone into this radio over the last 20 months. I'm very close to finishing this
project. A few little touches left and the back cabinet cover is close to being finished.
The end of August has arrived and the Bremer Tully is all back together again. I built a small
Ramsey AM transmitter that works well with my MP3 player. I downloaded many of the old
radio programs that would have been on the air when the Bremer Tully was new in 1928. It
is a real pleasure to sit and listen to what the original owner heard over 81 years ago. I have
played this radio for hours on end and it works extreemly well. Its like having a time
machine in the house. I have now posted a video of the Bremer Tully in action :
I aquired what has become a long, challenging project. Yes it was another barn find, I carried it out of
the barn in Canastota, NY. Jan 2, 2008. This is a 1928 Bremer Tully model 7-71 De Luxe Sliding Door
Console with the 7AM-87 Counterphase radio chassis (8 tube) in the upright console with the speaker in
the cabinet. The radio face and speaker are conceiled behind 2 sliding doors. This is a pretty good size
console at 49-1/2" tall, 25" wide, and 17" deep. The legs are 20" high and weighs in at a whopping 65 Lbs.
Back then every unit came with the hernia included!.
The entire cabinet including the legs are solid walnut !, and 2 tiger maple veneer pieces. The sliding
doors are solid walnut with bookmatched burl walnut veener. The radio was found complete but time
and moisture had there way with it. The speaker cone was the only thing in excellent condition, the rest
of the speaker was pretty rough. The speaker assembly is HUGE ! it is so massive that is is suspended by
bolts from the bottom of the cabinet top. The radio chassis was beyond belief, after viewing the before
pics of the chassis you may also need a tetanus shot. The cabinet was also pretty bad with a multitude
of major problems.
This Bremer Tully 7-71 was manufactured in 1928 in Chicago, IL. , I have found a similar riders
schematic for this radio from the good people at www.nostalgiaair.org . It is close to this chassis, but not exact. I have already recreated the power supply schematic to help diagnose some issues.
I have aquired a very nice original Bremer Tully sales brochure from 1929 which lists this model.
When new it sold for $280.00 less tubes. Slighty higher west of the rockies.
This project is taking up a lot of web space so I added seperate pages for
the cabinet and one for the chassis and one for just the power supply.
This Restoration was a lot of fun, and worth every minute
Below are the pictures as it arrived from the barn
( after is was deloused of barn critters and other crud )
It even had mud splashed on it.
Here is the Bremer Tully now after some 2000+ hours of serious fun. I'm glad I decided to try to
bring it back. I have tried to make this as close to the way it came as possible. The cabinet still
has many small flaws in it, but they are part of it's long history. I did take quite a few liberties
with the cabinet, but the chassis is very close to its original appearance.