A "replica" pre-war TV project

[Kamakiri]

I had this thought probably two years ago, just never came across the parts to do it. But now, I've got a great beginning.

First, was deciding what cabinet to use. I wanted something that would be relatively simple to fit a TV chassis into, and would have the correct pre-war look. Decided that I needed to find a Zenith round dial console cabinet from the late 30s. Just got one in that will be PERFECT for the job (thanks to DavGoodlin ).

It's got what I think is one extra hole cut in the front, but that doesn't matter much as the center hole will have to be filled anyway, and the front panel will need to be re-veneered after I get the new holes drilled for the controls.

For the chassis, I didn't want to ruin anything potentially restorable, so I came across this Tele-Tone on ebay a couple months back. The picture tube, unfortunately, has no horizontal deflection, so I assume that it took a hard hit at some point and the deflection plates inside either broke or got bent, something.

The cabinet on this Tele-Tone was heavily moisture damaged. All of the plywood is separating, and the whole thing is falling apart. However, the chassis is spotless.....oddly enough. Perfect!

Now, I'm not sure what to do about the former switch areas on the radio outside of the picture tube....I may just carefully trim the bezel and fill the cabinet holes. Ideas appreciated there.

Also, might as well do up an outboard 6V6 amp and a large speaker while I'm at it. After all, I have a lot of real estate to fill here......

[vts1134]

If you're re-veneering the front panel I would suggest moving the television controls down on the front panel away from the picture tube. It would look funny to have them as close to the picture tube as they are in the small table top cabinet. Also you could reuse the Tele-Tone's inner gold screen mask on the new cabinet and make it look like the RCA 5" sets. Just paint the mask brown and back paint a piece of glass to put in front of the mask.

Make this...



From this...

[John Marinello]

Will this be a porthole screen? I don't know the diameter of the radio dial.
Cool project, Eric, good luck with it!

[Eric H]

Isn't the CRT considerably deeper than the Radio cabinet?
If that's the case you could install one of those cheap 5" Jellybean sets inside masked off to resemble a Pre War 5".

[Kamakiri]

No, actually, just sitting the chassis inside, and testing with a picture tube, it comes out about even. The cabinet is a lot deeper than it looks in the pic.

[Kamakiri]

Originally Posted by John Marinello

Will this be a porthole screen? I don't know the diameter of the radio dial.
Cool project, Eric, good luck with it!

The glass potion of the dial measures 5 3/4". Should be about perfect for what I'm doing

[wa2ise]

In theory, the old push buttons could be used to select the desired TV channel. Though you'd need to modify or build a special tuner to do this, especially as the buttons are in clusters of 6 widely separated.

[Kamakiri]

Nah, I'm not going that far into it.

This is a hacked up pic of what it would look like if I just filled in the pushbutton areas and mounted the chassis.

Hm. Needs something.....other than different color knobs

[vts1134]

Originally Posted by Kamakiri

Hm. Needs something.....

Custom decals with your own brand name?

[dtvmcdonald]

That's an interesting project.

For another take on this, go to http://www.forum.radios-tv.co.uk/
and the TV forum. The second from top topic is "Recreating ..."
he really did ... from scratch, as near identical as possible. Its not finished.

[WISCOJIM]

Originally Posted by Kamakiri

Hm. Needs something.....other than different color knobs

If only you could find an old Midwest radio escutcheon and cut out the center portion. I think the "wings" would look cool on it.

.

[decojoe67]

Very cool idea! I've often thought of this myself. I can picture it as a porthole set and just masking the CRT if need be. When it's working it'll be very impressive.
I often thought of this with a 3" Pilot chassis, being they're so many existing. Cleverly incorporating the CRT at the top of a console radio above the radio dial.
Good luck!

[Electronic M]

I have the same Zenith console, with correct restored (by me) 25HZ chassis....I don't know why I restored it, the darn thing still worked GREAT on the original caps! That is one of Zenith's bulkier pre-war radio consoles....I could see a 7JP4 fitting it.

This may sound nutty, but I'd keep the button panels.....And I'd fit a VCR in with the loading mech pointed out the back. I'd route all the VCR's buttons to the Zenith bezel, leave the set on Ch3, and look for a PS line that is only on when the VCR is and hook a relay to that to turn the TV set on.....If done right you'd have remote tuning (if using cable or multiple agile modulators to feed it) and power control, not to mention a built in signal source....

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

This may sound nutty, but I'd keep the button panels.....And I'd fit a VCR in with the loading mech pointed out the back. ....

I'd use a DVD player, and use the luma video output (either the green jack on the "component video" outputs (set it to 480i) or the luma line of an S video output jack. Then I'd feed this to the video amp of the TV set (skipping over the tuner and IF) and do likewise with the audio.

[jr_tech]

My 2Cents (or less) worth: I think that it would ruin the effect that (I think) you are after if you install a modern player of any sort *inside* the cabinet, even if it is hidden away in the back. I'm guessing that you would want to be able to look in from the back and see nothing but vintage parts and warm, glowing tubes.

jr