The finishing touch on a Zenith Portable...Cosmetics of the stand

[Electronic M]

Since trying Howard Restor-a-finish this summer I've been on a bit of a kick to make things look better...In this trend the following story transpired...

Some may remember the 1964 Zenith portable I bought at an estate sale in Chicago with it's original stand...Well the stand was on the floor of the basement when I found it and was not in nearly as good shape as the TV.





The cart was VERY dusty, and worse still it had RUSTED badly especially on the bottom. The metal parts were plated metal(I'd guess nickel or chrome) and the corrosion had not only dulled the finish, but had actually peeled the plating off in several places near the bottom.

The stand was also very rickety due to two problems.
The first was that the front wood support for the TV had a split on one end that followed the grove for the tension rod which was not bracing the tension rod to actually allow it to tension! The second was a damaged thread on a securing nut for one of the tension rods which just would not stay screwed on.

Some might have tossed the original stand with it being in such sad shape, but this did not deter me.

I glued and clamped the split and with the exception of a clamp mark a bit under the size of a dime(I could have kicked my self for that) it was a complete success. I was considering replacing the damaged nut with a different looking non-original one, but since I had nothing to loose I tried to really get that nut to tighten on, and in the process the damaged section of the thread broke off leaving the good usable sections of threading in tact. The nut effectively fixed it's self!

Next I had to decide what to do about the corrosion on the metal parts. Since re-plating is out of my budget I went for the next best option....Chrome spray paint. I separated the metal from the wood(except for the tips on the side handles which after polishing looked good enough), and after vigorously scrubbing the surface of the metal with 00 steel wool I spray painted the metal. Once the paint was dry I hit the wood with howards and reassembled the stand. The result can be seen below.







The result IMO looks GREAT and fairly original.
What say you?

BTW the TV was working as found and currently falls under my "If it ain't broke, then hope it stays that way!" policy.