Hi I hope everyone is well today. My hobby is restoring antique electronics, like most of you here, but I restore them to modern day functionality. My most recent project was an Airline 05GSE-3042 Table Top TV. What I do is gut the electronics, refinish the cabinet and then I replace the original electronics with a High Def LCD flat panel. This way the furniture maintains it's original estetic while providing modern day functionality. I do this somewhat with radios and turntables as well. This hobby though leaves me in a jam and that is I have left over original TV chasis. Right now I have the chasis for the above mentioned Airline and 2 Dumont chasis. All 3 power on and you get a screen glow. I am looking for a home for these as I hate to throw them away. I am offering them for a modest price (I mean beer money modest (well maybe not beer but varnish LOL)). I am located in Northern NJ and if anyone is interested please let me know. Also the above mentioned Airline is currently being offered. I have attached pictures of the Airline but my true hope is to find a home for these chasis (lots of tubes here).

Thanks, Mike O

Yes, someone would want the original chassis to use for parts to restore other sets.

Really serious TV collectors as found here on the ARF feel that what you are doing is totally inappropriate and destroying history. If you can't restore the set to its original condition then you should leave it alone and pass the entire set with original chassis on to someone who will. They work just fine when restored and fed with a digital converter box, or a DVD player and an RF modulator.

You are also not allowed to offer items for sale in the TV forum, it is against the rules. If you want to sell items they have to go into the Classified section. Also each one must be individually priced.

Although I also may not agree with it, projects like this can also be viewed as preserving history. The set(s) may never have survived, if he didn't reuse the cabinets. His work may also generate more interest in vintage sets and therefore create more true collectors who will then want preserve vintage TVs.

I'm afraid you came to the wrong place. I'm trying to think of a good analogy. How about, a Satanist barges into a monastery and is puzzled when he doesn't get a hearty, back-slapping welcome.

People in this forum restore old TVs and radios, not destroy them.

I hope the DuMonts that you trashed were not from the 1940s. Those were basically the Rolls Royce of vintage TVs, quite desirable and worth vastly more in unrestored condition than as cabinets with some flat-screen garbage inside.

Perhaps you are not aware that it's possible to truly restore an old TV -- "guts" and all -- so that it works like new. I have included photos of a couple of examples.

It's true that not every old TV is a priceless treasure. Some boring B/W consoles from the mid-1950s and onward are honestly not worth a heck of a lot. You might get slightly more sympathy with your project if these were old TVs that you had previously offered to give away or sell at a nominal price in the Classified section, with no takers.

Just my $0.02.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

Ditto to Phil's comment.

There's at least one intact Airline GSE-30XX set left

All you wind up with is a modern TV in an old cabinet. Nothing close to being a restoration.

Do what you will with them, they are yours after all. You may very likely find a more receptive audience in an ebay or crafters forum of someplace not devoted to repair / restoration. As others have mentioned, there is a dim view on here of this sort of repurposing...the intention of this forum is to help you keep and repair an original set.

If our gentle pleas to preserve and keep the original sets don't convince you, however, you ought to at least consider re-purposing with a late model CRT based TV.

But, to me, there is nothing better than the sight of a working vintage TV. FAR more interesting to anyone who sees it.

The flat screen in a vintage case is just wrong looking. Without the curvature of the glass on the CRT, it really gives the wrong impression to the viewer. Plus, the aspect ratio is too far off - in order to fill the top to bottom of the mask properly, you'll be wasting a ton of left / right screen if the new set even fits in at all.

Good luck to you, sincerely. I'm sure you'll find homes for the original chassis' and parts you have left over. Some of the parts are possibly very useful.

I hate to say it but parts have to come from some place, there are far too many sets to restore with the limited supply of good CRT's available.

I do hope someone will be able to save these chassis and tubes.

Mike O, if you must convert these old sets then do it right.
No way will a 16:9 Flat Panel fit correctly inside a 4:3 Mask, you would be much better off finding a cheap Thrift Store CRT set from the 90's-2000's and using the guts from that.
True it won't be HD but it'll have Composite inputs and make a really fine picture from a DVD or Cable, at 15" or so HD isn't really all that important, plus if you choose carefully you can find a tube with a similar shape that will fit the mask.

Also you might want to ask here first to make sure you aren't dismembering a rare set.
Bill is right about the Dumont's a nice one might sell for a couple hundred which would probably be more profitable that converting one, not to mention less work.

Some craftsman. He couldn't even get it centered.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0741541398



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"Restoring?" As long as we're stretching definitions here, I'm going to suggest that a TV cabinet doesn't necessarily have to hold water to be a fish tank....

Gad, what a mess.

While we all agree that putting modern electronics into a vintage cabinet isn't restoration, This topic has gone off the deep end. This has turned into a bashing, and, I feel it should stop.

As noted, not all sets are worth restoring, and, some parts are getting difficult to find, including some picture tubes.
However, cut the man some slack.
I locked it to stop things before they get any worse.
Bill Cahill