Sacreligious!!! I put a new TV in old cabinet!!!

[Carmine]

Just so everybody knows, I normally hate people who do this!

But since I purchased this cabinet on Ebay without any guts already, I figured that I could live with myself. I hope I don't sound too full of myself, but I think it turned out pretty good...

And yes, this was a Zenith Porthole at one time.

[Carmine]

Bet you've never seen anybody use a sawzall for TV work?

Another interesting fact... The Monitor-style TV is a 1990 Zenith that my parents bought new in 1990. This was our "main" TV for years, and has never been serviced until recently (Captain Moody replace some power supply caps). I think this may have been one of the LAST, GOOD Zenith sets, so it's fitting that it get morphed into one of their first!

[Carmine]

This wasn't just a "make a shelf and put the new TV on it" project. This TV is now PART of the old cabinet, although I did use the old speaker area as a DVD/VCR shelf.

[Carmine]

Back re-installed for safety. New TV was just a 1/4" wider than the old opening, but the sawzall took care of that.

[Carmine]

As you can see, the room has changed quite a bit too. I'm slowy restoring my 1927 house from cheap-paneling-&-shag back to some of its original character. As such, I didn't want some ugly modern plastic cube in my 1930s-looking living room.

The big stereo next to it is a 1967 Maganvox Astro-Sonic with 12" woofers and a huge two channel amp. (I redid the high-quality cabinet to match the TV and furniture) The sound is INCREDIBLE, and the whole deal is wired into the 5-disc DVD/CD changer under the TV. It really gives a surround-effect during movies.

[Charlie]

Camine...

No photo showing the front? And operating? Trying to tease us? The photo from the rear looks like a nice job.

What you did isn't bad. I would do the same if I had a nice cabinet that had a hopeless case chassis & tube. Or, like in your case, just an empty cabinet.

Just don't make a habit of it!

[Charlie]

Ahh... there it is! Looks good!

[Carmine]

Here's a better close-up...

[Celt]

Hey, nothing wrong with that! Looks totally cool!

[Charlie]

Wow! The close up is much better! That's impressive work! At least you didn't install a fishtank.

[Carmine]

Here's a pic of that Maganvox during re-finishing. This really gave me new respect for Magnavox quality. I think I'd like to get one of their old TVs too.

I got this stereo at a Sun City AZ estate sale for $15, mostly cause nobody wanted to move this monster. I liked it so much that I shipped it with me when I moved back to Detroit.

[Sandy G]

Good job, Carmine !! Very well done & in keeping w/the character of the old set. I think you've got very good taste. -Sandy G.

Best use of a vintage TV yet!!!

[Jeffhs]

I don't think putting a new TV in an old cabinet is sacrilegious, as long as the set that was originally in it was beyond repair. However, your Zenith fits in that older cabinet just fine after the slight modifications you made. It's amazing what a little woodworking can do for an old cabinet like that.

I like how it looks in your living room with the Magnavox stereo console. Those Astro-Sonic consoles can often outperform today's shelf systems many times over, even though the later Astro-Sonics were solid state. I have pretty much the same setup in my apartment, with my 19" RCA TV, 240-watt Aiwa shelf stereo and cable box (in fact, I run the audio output from the cable box through the stereo and listen to the cable music channels; the system sounds great, much better than when I simply listen through the tiny speaker [only one, not stereo] in the TV itself).

My stereo also has surround sound, but I've never used it while watching a TV program. I don't much care for today's movies ('80s-90s, although I do like the ones from about 1950 through 1989 or thereabouts, especially those great musicals in the mid-60s--before they got crazy, if you know what I mean; I have a lot of them on VHS), and the old ones on AMC, TCM and IFC (the three free movie channels I get on Comcast digital cable) often don't have much music in them, so I just listen to their audio through my set's own speaker. My hearing is not the best in the world anyway (I am practically deaf in one ear), so it really doesn't make much sense for me to listen to movies or anything else in stereo as most of the effect is lost to me.

[Shain]

Carmine

I like the new TV in the cabinet. Nice job.

I had the idea of a big old cabinet, and installing a vintage stereo sytem, with some vintage speakers. Might be a fun project.