Temporary LCD conversion to a Porthole

[CoogarXR]

I know LCD conversions to classic TVs are usually frowned upon. But my wife was sick of waiting on me to fix the Zenith porthole TV for her 50s themed dining room. So I had an idea; I could throw an LCD TV inside with no mods to the original cabinet. It would look authentic while its playing, and it would be easy to put back when/if I ever get the original chassis working.

Here's a condensed version of what I did. I removed the tube chassis, and the screen guide brackets. I measured the screen, it was 12". I measured every spare TV I had, and found an old 4:3 format 20" Emerson LCD TV that had a screen that measured a little over 12" high. I hoped to fit the whole TV inside the cabinet, but the opening is only 16" and the LCD case is way bigger due to the speakers. So I took the LCD TV out of its case and test fit it. It was almost perfect, except I had to trim the top metal brackets off the LCD so it would be centered in the porthole window. I screwed the LCD to the cabinet with 4 small wood screws (for you purists, this is the only modification that is not reversible). Here's where I got lucky- the LCD TV buttons were on the bottom of the original TV, so the cable for the button pad was long enough to feed out into the pencil box. And the button pad was small enough to fit into the pencil box too! So I just used some 3M double-sided body tape to hold the button strip in place. Now you flip down the door, and the buttons are inside, close it and it's back to 1951. The only problem left was the two big knobs; how to hold them on, and be able to withstand curious people turning them. I used a hole saw on some scrap wood and made two wooden disks to fit inside the escutcheon from behind. Then I took a forstner bit and made a hole in the center of the disks the same as the outer diameter of the knob shafts. This way, I push the knob onto the wooden disk, with the escutcheon sandwiched in the middle. This makes the knobs hold securely, and be able to spin harmlessly. The last step was connecting the original speaker to the audio circuit on the LCD TV. I just made up a cable with a 2-pin connector on one end, and spade terminals on the other, patched it in, and wah-lah, the old speaker plays. That's about it. Here's the TV before:



Here's what it looks like now. Sorry, my camera sucks. I couldn't get a clear picture of both the cabinet and the screen, so you get one of each. Don't mind the DVD player hiding underneath, lol.





With this solution, the wife is happy. She has her TV, and she thinks it neat-o. And it can be switched back to a tuber in about 20 minutes if need be.