instructables

Vintage TV Console Revamp

by travderose

I inherited this 1960's Sears media cabinet console with a TV, radio, and a record player! My grandma was going to throw it out but I just couldn't let it go. It was in rough shape but it was so cool! I had to revamp this thing! Supplies:

Vintage TV console I inherited mine but I'm sure these are available on Craigslist and eBay Legs: https://amzn.to/3uJ2Mjj LED Light strip: https://amzn.to/3LtwUVN General Finishes Nutmeg Gel Stain: https://amzn.to/33hB2qw General Finishes High Performance Water Based Topcoat: https://amzn.to/34Bp63D Magnetic adhesive tape: https://amzn.to/3gFgqf7

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Step 1: Disassemble

This thing was in pretty rough shape and was quite overwhelming at rst! But within a few hours or so I had a lot of it disassembled and it started to feel more manageable.

Important: These old CRT displays can carry lethal amounts of charges in them even after years of nonuse. Please take extreme caution in discharging these and enlist the help of a professional if you're inexperienced.

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Step 2: Strip the Wood

The wood and nish on the cabinet was in pretty rough shape as well. It had a lot of scratches and de nitely needed some work.

I've never really worked with re nishing furniture so this was my rst attempt but it went pretty well!

The rst step was to strip o the old nish. I used a chemical stripper called Citristrip and it worked pretty great. It's just a simple process of brushing it on and scraping it o (along with the nish).

I had to do it twice in a few spots so my tip is not to let the Citristrip dry for too long. You still want it to be a little wet so it scrapes o easy. But just read the instructions and maybe look up a few other tutorials if you've never done it before.

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Step 3: Clean & Modify the Old Stuff

This is a good time to clean o anything that you plan to use from the old components like plastic knobs and frames. I just use warm water with some dish soap to clean them o , nothing too abrasive or harsh.

I could've repainted a few of these knobs to make them look better but I kinda like the patina and history to them.

I decided not have the old radio or turntable work – I just don't have the skills to repair them. So I completely scrapped the turntable but kept the radio and TV of course.

But I wanted to keep all the knobs and everything as functional as possible. So I was able to gut the Rear components of the TV channel selector so that it still works! And I did the same with the radio removing all of the old parts except for the knobs so all the knobs still turn and click and even the tuning selector works still!

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Step 4: Modify the Cabinet

I decided to remove the TV screen and build out a cubby hole inside of there to displays collectables or store records or whatever. But that required a bit of modi cation to the cabinet and TV frame.

I rst had to remove a lot of the plastic frame components that supported the heavy TV tube because it wasn't necessary and didn't look very good. So I used a Dremel to slice all that unnecessary stu o .

Then I got to building out the cubby hole inside of the TV. It's really just a matter of puzzle piecing it together and tting it so you don't see any seams or holes. It took some time but I'm really happy with how the bottom shelf of the cubby ts with the curve in the plastic TV frame – You can't even see the seam! So just take your time and t it all together nicely �

Then don't forget to add those side walls and back to the cubby hole attaching and securing them wherever you can.

I also changed out the legs on the TV cabinet to be a more of a mid-century modern style. I got these legs from Amazon and installed them: https://amzn.to/3uJ2Mjj

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Step 5: Make It Glow

I got this LED light strip from Amazon to light up the cubby inside of the TV. But it was longer than I needed so I was able to utilize it to light up the radio and the channel selector was well! I'm so happy that these components still light up, it really brings this whole thing to life.

AND I even got the lights to turn on using the old existing power switch for the radio! We were able to hack in there and wire it up so that when you turn on the radio using the original know it turns on the lights instead!

Also instead of dealing with splicing and rewiring these tiny LED strips, I just blacked out the LEDs I didn't want to illuminate by painting over them with black nail polish. It worked great!

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Step 6: Sand, Stain or Paint, & Finish

Again, I'm no expert woodworker, this was really my rst time doing all of this stu but it's very do-able! I looked at a ton of tutorials to help me with that so I'm going to refer you to YouTube and other Instructables if you need help with this process.

But overall, the process is:

1. Begin by disassembling everything again. 2. Sand down the wood to a nice smooth nish. 3. Tip: don't san ner than 150 grit so the stain has some pores to absorb into. 4. Stain the wood 5. Tip: Use a wood conditioner before applying the stain 6. Finish the wood 7. Tip: Be sure to sand in between coats

I used General Finishes Nutmeg Gel Stain which I love! The color is beautiful, really gave me that perfect warm mid- century modern tone I wanted. And the gel stain was easy to work with and forgiving.

Then I nished the wood with General Finishes High Performance Water Based Topcoat . This stu was a little tricky for me and took some time to gure out the right process to apply it but after some practice I got really good results that I'm very happy with. And it's super durable so I know my wood is well protected!

I also decided to paint some of the interior cubby rather than stain it so I primed those wood pieces and then painted them blue.

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Step 7: Make the Speaker Covers

Pretty simple to make the speaker covers. I used some of the spare thin wood I had from the back piece to cut out the speaker covers. I actually didn't cut out any holes for the speakers because I didn't install any speakers right now. That will be a future upgrade for when I decide where I want to permanently keep this big thing.

I found some thin fabric that looks perfect at Joann's so I just sprayed a little adhesive on the front and installed that. The I used this magnetic tape to stick the edges back and then magnetically attach the speaker covers to the cabinet. It works ok, I'm not sure that the magnetic tape adhesive is strong enough to last.

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Step 8: Reassemble & Enjoy!

Now all you have to do is put everything back together and you're done!

This was my rst time really working with nice wood, stain, and nishing but I’m quite happy with the results. I de nitely have a newfound respect and appreciation for furniture craftsman!

I don't have a home for this thing yet but when I gure out where I'm going to keep it, then I'll install some good speakers and probably drop in a record player into that empty shelf on the left.

Thanks for following along and please let me know if you have any thoughts, ideas, or make one yourself!

-Travis

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I like it! It really does have a mid century modern look with those legs. It will fit in nicely with the new modern furniture styles. In the cubby, you could put in a cat bed for THE CAT of the house! Anything, really. I was going to buy an old 50's portable and gut it and make it a cat bed but never did. You could put a flat screen TV in there to make it look like the old TV worked. Find a TV that would fit nicely in the opening. You'd just control it with the remote. Some of those old console TV's were beautiful but who wants to have an old TV there that doesn't work, sitting there, taking up room for nothing. If you like the cabinet, something like this makes the thing usable. It was nice to watch the whole production and get ideas from it. Thanks a lot!

Thank you! I already took an old iMac and turned that into a cat bed haha: https://www.instructables.com/IMac-Cat-Bed/ And Yeah I figured we'd want a bigger TV than that thing could hold anyway so I opted for the cubby hole instead

BEAUTIFUL!! Thank you so much for not painting the cabinet as so many do to antiques and vintage pieces because of a fad for doing so and restoring it to its former beauty. Norman had a great idea to put a flat screen into the old TV cavity to make it useful again. I would also suggest a CD player if you do not have a collection of vinyl records on one side and CD & DVD storage on the other side. If you do have old records I would put in a replacement record player or if the old player still works put that back in with the speakers :). WELL DONE!!!!

Thank you! Yeah, I agree and the wood just had too much potential to paint. And I figured we'd want a bigger TV than that thing could hold anyway so I opted for the cubby hole instead of a TV swap. I plan to hookup a bluetooth/wifi receiver for audio and drop in a turntable and store our records in the TV cubby hole

Awe!!! OK, I love that you restored the cabinet. It's beautiful!!! The old turntable– most of them were "Gerrard," was kinda cool because it had a stackable pinion for loading the next album. …but they would eventually eat your vinyl. 🙁 The tube amplifier, on the other hand, is worth a revisit. There's nothing like the deep, warm sounding bass that a tube amp provides. If you could separate the tube amp from the tv tuner, you could have a great sound system!!!! The TV? When I looked at the picture in the Instructables, I thought it WAS a flat panel mod. BRAVO for the eyeball trickery! I'd like to see a flat panel screen modification. I guess the hard part– if not impossible– would be the aspect ratio. HMMMM.

Thank you! Yeah, I looked into it but it just wasn't something I had the capacity to do. And Yeah I figured we'd want a bigger TV than that thing could hold anyway so I opted for the cubby hole instead

Nice job! When my son bought an old house last year the previous owners left a bunch of furniture. Most of it we gave away, but he decided to keep the console TV (from the 70s it looks like) as I told him would could probably upcycle it into a cat sleeping area, cat box, or something else like storage. We're still in the midst of renovating the 90 year old house, but once that's done we'll see what we can do with the TV. I hope I can restore the finish. It's not real wood I don't think, but probably engineered wood. Should be a fun project.

BTW they do sell USB-driven turntables. Maybe you can install one of those instead and make it functional (if you have any vinyl records of course).

Nice! Very cool, I'd love to see that when you're done.

Yeah, the plan is to drop a turntable in there when I find a home for the whole console

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if i had old console like from the fifties and had the money i would had got very last thing of it restored to Factory standard to make it look like if it was just was bought at the store because might be worth some money if from the 50's. but id like to see a modern version made where it had a radio record player and flat screen tv with a old look make it look like the old console exactly the same as a old ones but remove the tv tub and replace it with a flat screen tv so the console will be little bit longer shorter or taller and the tub frame make one that look just like a old one but only make the size to fit a new tv with the basal of the new TV hidden so it will look like a old tv console but at the same modern. it'll kind of look like it could be a TV console for a movie where they're in a parallel universe where modern technology meet old school furnishing that would be cool to see

Wow that would be awesome!

I like the refinishing job. My parents had such a set and I had to repair the amplifier and turntable for it. The TV never had problems. As for replacing the CRT with a flat panel, the old screen ratio was 4:3 but new flat screens are 16:9 so you have to hide the sides that overlap, plus install a driver to shrink the image to the same 4:3 ratio.

Yeah I figured we'd want a bigger TV than that thing could hold anyway so I opted for the cubby hole instead

Very cool. You should make the three knobs on the front change the RGB values of the lights.

Haha that would be awesome! Any direction on how to go about doing that, I have no idea!

One thing I didn’t notice in your Instructible was disarming the CRT (picture tube). CRTs are vacuum tubes that can be quite dangerous if they implode. If you breach the tube the implosion turns the glass in the tube into shrapnel. I used to run TV shops back when they were universal and could make money (the old vacuum tube based color TVs cost over a $100 a year in repairs). The repair guys were pretty paranoid and rightly so, I’ve seen the upholstery in a car shredded when an intact CRT broke during a panic stop. I won’t describe the disarming method because of legal concerns. You really need to have a pro disarm the CRT.

Yes, thank you! That is a super important point. I discharged this myself and have experience doing so but I just editied the Instructable to mention that as a warning.

The CRT can be disposed safely with care. I have done this over ten times. Just place the tube inside two layers of garden bags (more than 1 mil thick) and tie them. Then lay the tube with the screen on the ground outdoors. Use a heavy hammer to swing at the neck until it breaks. You hear the vacuum being broken. Then smash the glass through the bags until it is quite flatten (no need to break the screen which is thicker). Finally, tie the bags inside a third bag (in case the glass broke the bags) and dispose.

Actually the safest way is breaking the vacuum while the CRT is still in the set. The manufacturer designed the tv and CRT to minimize danger from implosion. The front screen is safety glass and the shielding and cabinet is designed to direct any shrapnel out the back. We always leaned over the top to perform the deed.

They implode not ex. My dad was a TV repairman back in the day. The Flyback holds a massive charge that can kill you thought.

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