I recently acquired a 2B that was in fairly decent condition, but the cabinet needed a paint job to look good because it had several little scratches and blemishes. Anyway, after sanding the whole cabinet down, priming it, and spraying it with Rustoleum Satin Black paint, It came out pretty nice looking, I let it sit for close to a week before putting the radio back in the cabinet. The problem is, no matter how gently I put the radio back in the cabinet, the paint on the inside bottom of the cabinet gets scratched badly. Mostly in two places - bottom left and bottom right. Just the front 3/4" or so. I originally thought it was the chassis scraping it, but I found out it's mostly the bottom of the front panel. (the edges were kind of sharp, but I subsequently sanded them lightly). If I try touching up the scratched areas with a brush or Q-tip, those spots are still very noticeable, and don't look too good. After re-sanding and re-spraying the inside bottom several times, I finally found out that if I put painter's tape along the inside bottom (front) of the cabinet, I can slide the radio back into the cabinet extremely carefully, and still have the paint intact. (I managed to do it once anyway). Now I'm afraid of ever taking the radio back out of the cabinet for fear of getting the paint scratched. I know the original paint was much more durable, but I believe they used a powder-type paint. I'm not sure if the paint is ever going to harden to the point that it won't easily be scratched, or should I maybe consider using an expensive spray paint that is supposed to be real tough and actually harden to the point that it can take a slight bit of abuse. I don't have the luxury of having an oven, compressor, spray gun, or other professional painting equipment. Thanks for any help, Al, WA2AS
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