Consolizing my TV

[Jeffhs]

This should be possible. The only thing you may have to do is to build a frame around the CRT if your set is a bit too small. I had relatives who did this with old 3-way entertainment center consoles, when the TV quit; they replaced the old set with a smaller portable. In both cases the original TV was either a 19" or 21" round tube set.

Nineteen-inch and smaller floor-standing consoles were popular in the '50s, with larger sets appearing the following decade. GE made one in 1951 with a 16" CRT; Capehart-Farnsworth also had a 16-inch round-tube console. The larger screen consoles (over 19") often had AM-FM radio, stereo, and a record changer, and were heavy (and large) as the dickens -- some of them were over six feet long, and weighed the proverbial ton. Magnavox made a 25" 3-way entertainment center console in the mid-'60s with 25-inch color TV, AM-FM radio, stereo, phono, and a remote control (called the Phantom) that could operate the entire set. Zenith also had three-way entertainment centers, but the remotes only operated the TV. These consoles looked fabulous (they were usually housed in fine wood cabinets) and worked well when they were in good shape; however, since the TV audio was often routed through the hi-fi stereo amplifier, if for any reason the stereo went bad, the TV had no sound either.