[snelson903]

no the hammer and chissel thing thats my sence of humour ,its suppose to get a laugh ,i didnt think anyone would think i was really going to take a hammer and chissel to the picture tube. and yes when the chassis and everything is finish it will have a new grounding strap a one peace from the inspection cover to chassis tube to the metal tuner asembly if you notice how rusty the old strap is its not going to be reused.i have a nice flat new braided grounding strap that is far better than the orginal ,and for painting the inspection cover im sure the spots would comeback quickly ,when you buff off the pickeling coating it needs some protection ,when i attach the the new ground strap i will clean off the paint just in that area to ensure contact. the panels esp. the top one is in pretty bad shape it looks like it had something setting on it for a long time ,plus its overall thickness is more than the other's due to expaintion and seperation ,and under the top panel [ center ] they never made any real structure support ,so if you look at the time and effort that go into trying to save cheap vener press board it would be easyer to add more support frameing and replace the panels with new tight graind real wood so it would look like the fack vener wood pattern but be real wood ,then when that is finished i can stain the complete inside of the cabnet also.but keep in mind this tv is a plain jane and its always going to be a plain jane cabnet .plus this tv was not to far from becoming fire wood ,but hay i wanted see and learn about staining and finishing ,working with wood thats not a problem, restaining and finishing thats the time comsuming work ,and the orginal panels is not worth it .