Rescue a vintage TV cabinet

I picked up this old television at a flea market.  You have to be really careful with these ancient televisions.  These sets carry a lot of voltage, however  it's not necessarily  the voltage that kills you, but the brick wall that the shock throws you through!  ThisTV chassis was too old, rusty, and too dangerous to restore, but the cabinet looked promising.  

I know folks have converted these old cabinets into many different things -- storage cabinets, aquariums, sterio cabinets, and such, but I wanted it to still function as a television.  I figured it would be neat to watch old movies on a vintage looking tv,  so I decided to gut this cabinet and place a more modern television inside.  This turned out to be a fairly simple project, and was completed in one afternoon.

The supplies I used included:

- 3 feet of 2x6 lumber
- 1 small older tv that I already had
- an RF modulator (so I could hook a dvd player to the tv)
- miscellanous pieces of scrap wood
- hot glue
- wood screws
- cleaners & disinfectants
- various scratch removers

Tools required were:

- screwdrivers
- electric drill & bit
- skill saw
- hot glue gun

Step 1 Disassemble the beast

The first thing I did was snip off the main electrical wire.  I figured this would keep me from being tempted to plug this thing in.  Rat urine apparently had corroded the power supply, the main transformer, and many of the electrical components beneath the chassis.  This chassis was shot, but I will probably salvage a few items from it and try to find a rebuilder who might want the picture tube.

Removing the chassis was easy.  I took off the remaining knob (it was missing all the others), removed the back, removed four bolts from underneath the cabinet, unplugged the speaker, and slid this 50 pound beast out onto the floor (photo 1).  I cleaned out about a pound of rat droppings from the case, then cleaned the inside with disinfectant.

With the chassis removed, I now had basically a hollow box (photo 2).

I then removed the four screws holding the speaker and the four screws holding the front lens and  began attacking the outside of the case with cleaners and scratch removers.  The top and sides of the case were made from some sort of printed masonite, so a full refinish was not an option.  Before working on the scratches, of course, I first had to remove the dog (photo 3)....

Comments

[robot797]

YOU MADE ME CRY

[meddler]

I was going to do the same this to a old Zenith. But the thrift store sold it the day before I had the money to buy it. Drat the luck..

[onemoroni1]

Nice, fun, re-purposing project. I have been looking for something like this as a TV or old tube radio to fix up or refurbish. Looking for free stuff.

[Urrn]

What would you call this kind of tv? like model and such?

[knife141]

I have no idea what brand or model this was. The label was gone off the chassis, and the brand painted on the front was so faint it was unreadable.

[yaly]

I could use it as a fish bowl.

[davidclarke]

Shame, you could have attached it to a VERY long extension lead, put it a VERY long way from your house, stuck a finger in ur ear and prayed for ur trip switches then plugged it in to see what happened, of course probably nothing but it would have been interesting to see.. by the way very nice find and nice mod...

[knife141]

If the power supply had not been so corroded, I probably would have replaced the 20-30 capacitors underneath and tried to fire this beast up, but the corrosion was so extensive I would have never trusted it. Plus, I don't think I own a pole long enough to have turned it on! Thanks for your comment.

[robot797]

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE
that poor tv

[splazem]

Wow. That's awesome.

[knife141]

Thank you!

[splazem]

Sure.

[toad]

very cool looking. There are a bunch of these in my parents house but Im afraid of them because they still work. I still want to do this to them.

[knife141]

Thanks for your comment. If you try this, be sure and discharge the picture tube first. It can hold a huge charge for months after being unplugged. Thanks again.

[yourmom003]

you know if you took the tv out of it's box you could fit the screen to the front better, looking at the picture you took it looks kind of awkward seeing the case on the inside of the screen.

so rip it apart ans fasten the tube to the front, then it'll be a normal tv instead of the inception tv whiten a tv you have now :)

[iminthebathroom]

awesome, love the simplicity. Your TV may have options in the tools settings to fiddle with, namely the trapezoid settings. These will allow you to distort the edges similar to the original set would have played them, I know we used to have a similar model that worked. It was odd watching tranformers through it...

[knife141]

Thank you for your comment! I'll have to check to see if this one has trapezoid settings.