Both Radio Daze and John's grille cloth site are announcing that their supplier is going out of business!

http://www.grillecloth.com/index.html

http://www.radiosupply.com/category/290.aspx

Any thoughts on this?

Certainly another supplier can be found in China. They have a huge textile industry.

It would be even better if a supplier in the good old US of A can be found, but that doesn't seem very likely.

Walton cloth is gone. Looks like Radio Daze announced this in early June. I don't recall anything on grillecoth.com when I was on the site a few weeks ago.

Bob

I guess that we'll have to go back to cutting pieces out of some old couch. Wonder if the Walton cloth will end up on E-bla for huge $ ?

AES has not announced that their supplier has discountinued theirs.

I don't count on AES for much of anything, except nos tubes these days.

I bet it was all made by the same suppliers. Think of it this way, so far John has the courtesy to let us know, so we can buy now, and not be disapointed later.

I'd be curious as to why the supplier is going out of business. Is it because of this recession, is it because of poor health, not enough business or just wants to get out of the business. I'm fairly optimistic that another supplier will eventually be found. I think reproduction grillcloth is just to much in demand by collectors and restorers to let the supply permanently dry up.

I don't know how many of you have an Ocean State Job Lot nearby but I found some six yard pieces of fabric suitable for grill cloth. One has a diamond pattern and the other just looks like something that will work. The final check will be when I try it on a radio. I'm sure thay will have a random selection since it is a close-out store and you may not see the same patterns I found. I will be going back one more time soon to see if there are any different designs that I may try.

Old spandex works good too

I would move this to Tubes & Parts so that more people might see it.

I agree, or put it in Cabinet Restoration or back in Antique Radio Discussion. This is something with a potentially *huge* negative impact on radio collectors and restorers.

Bob

I wonder what it would take if you owned a large loom...? I mean, if people are willing to attempt to mfgr thier own vacuum tubes, as I've seen discussed on the forum, why not try custom-made grill cloth as a cottage industry.
-DS

Whew! I'm so glad I just replaced the grille cloth in the last radio I have that needed it. I do hope somone else will supply it. Having correct cloths to complete a radio restoration has made a huge impact on the hobby.

I really hope and pray someone else starts making grille cloth. There's definitely a big market out there for it (radios, amps, jukes, etc.), so I would think someone would pick it up. I just wonder why they are closing down.

Wow, bad news. If we want cheap Chinese stuff, maybe someone could send some samples to one of the outfits on this list and get some more made:

http://www.made-in-china.com/products-s ... abric.html

Peter

I placed an order Sunday and it's business as usual........for the time being, anyway.

Antique Radio Supply might give you there source and ARF could hook up with the provider. There will always be someplace else. Watch the prices rise with those that have NOS in the cabinet, with the fear of uncertainity. Reminds me of the solder craze.

I'm not overly optimistic about this. I'm guessing that Radiodaze, AES, and grillecloth.com all obtained their cloth from the same source. Unless both Radiodaze and grillecloth.com are in cahoots with each other, it's pretty obvious that this source is closing up shop for good. If it were that easy to find another manufacturer, I would think that either or both of these sellers would have located one.

Does anyone know much about textile manufacturing? I know there are computerized looms that can duplicate almost anything, but I have no idea how expensive this is. It's possible that the defunct supplier might have all these patterns in the form of an electronic file that could be used by another manufacturer with similar equipment. If not, I'm betting that it wouldn't be cheap to create them from scratch.

Bob

Bretts has some old style grille cloth as well.

http://shop.ebay.com/brets-old-radios/m.html

As I recall John had a secret supplier of the cloth at one time.

Radio Daze indicates that they are working on finding a new supplier.