My First Stereo Revival (Ep one) - Realistic STA 64 Receiver

A 40 year audio journey back in time.
I feel like I have come a long way over the last 40 years building the audio system I have today for listening to the music I love. I also think the path of what I think good audio is was set for me when I was a little kid. I grew up in a time (1970's) when my two older brothers and a sister either had themselves or had friends that had top of the line audio systems of the day. Always one upping one another.
I caught the fever a very young age and I had to build my own audio system. With help from those people and with what I could beg, borrow or work for at the end of the Summer of 1980 I bought my first real piece of audio equipment from a friend who had already moved on to much bigger and better. The Realistic STA 64 Receiver was almost two years old at the time. I just turned 12 years old that month. The journey had begun.
Not having that stereo today a new journey has begun to rebuild my first stereo system and compare it to what I have 40 years later to see if and what has changed over the years for me.
(Ep one)
What I thought would be a simple trip down memory has taken serious fork in the road. During shipping the receiver was not packed proper and it was dropped and damaged. Bad. We would have just sent it back but the seller made a deal and we got a little project to fill our time.
We have to repair a large dent and other shipping damage and also refinish the receiver's Walnut case. There is also damage to the aluminum face and the whole thing needs to be cleaned inside and out including the potentiometers.