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1938 General Electric Console Radio Resto-Mod

I've been busy over the weekend. Had family here, smoked 9 racks and a shoulder, bought/rebuilt an old 30s/40s desk fan, and got some work done on the jukebox.

I mounted the re-built woofers in the new enclosure, added banana/binding posts, and wired all the speakers.

Plugged it into our Win7 machine downstairs in the TV room and loaded various songs to get it going. Rock, rap, country, and some dubstep to get the re-foamed woofers broke in and loosened up a bit.

With the computer volume at 100% (slider in the taskbar), the pre-amp controls for the speakers at 50%, and the volume control for AlbumPlayer set at about 25% this thing gets down. It rattles the floor upstairs. :ror:

What's funny is we have a nice surround sound setup in the TV room (Denon receiver that's fed audio/video from PC via HDMI) and when you plug in to the audio jacks on the sound card it stops putting audio out via HDMI.

So I had it on, went upstairs, and we listened to it while BSing upstairs. Turned AlbumPlayer off, and went to the garage to work on an old fan I picked up.

While I was out there I heard the kids watching a movie. Thought nothing of it. Came inside to get my phone (was next to the jukebox) and realized that just how loud it was and how good it sounded. I thought the home theater system was on. :roll: :lol:

Very happy with the sound from it. Now to wrap up the finish on it and make the trim piece for the touchscreen.
 
Decided to measure dB output six feet in front of the jukebox.

Meter maxed out at 140.5dB and the jukebox wasn't at full volume. :lol:

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Speaker pre-amp controls
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Plate cut for the monitor controls. Still need to mount it. Holes were rough there. Was still in the process of checking fit and hitting the high spots with a round rasp.
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I needed to extend the wires for the monitor control switches so I used CAT5 guts and soldered in an extension.
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New cable.
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Stuck in place with a fresh coat of paint on the panel. This was after the first coat. A 2nd coat has since been applied.
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Vibration hasn't been an issue. I used 1/2" MDF to keep weight down but still keep it solid.

I thought about 3/4" MDF but I figured that, for what I'm doing, anything over 1/2" would be past that point of diminshing returns - just adding weight without making it structualy stronger.

As it sits, I don't think an optical drive would have a problem if I hard-mounted one in the cabinet.

*edit for update

Got started on the trim piece for the touch screen. Making a mold of the stock piece so I can cast replicas and cut them up as needed. This will give me a "factory" look to the new trim bezel.

Mixing some silicone rubber
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First half of the mold poured.
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Last edited:
Yeah. Alumilite.

Poured the first half of the mold with some old silicone. It ended up with bubbles in it. Went ahead and poured the other half with some new stuff so I'd have at least half of a mold that was usable. Applied the rubber-to-rubber mold release and all went well. Needed to get more silicone so I could re-pour the bad half, but all I could get was high-strength stuff. Got that, poured the bad half and waited for it to cure. The high-strength crap takes 24hrs to cure and 48hrs for a complete cure. It NEVER fully cured. :evil:

So...waited for the regular stuff to come back in stock. Got it, mixed it, and poured again. It cured and when I got ready to separate the two halves of the mold they wouldn't release. Seems *someone* forgot to apply mold release prior to that last pour. :oops:

So...I'm out 3lbs of silicone rubber. Three pounds. Did I mention it's $30/lb?


...and I need to buy two more pounds of silicone to make a good mold.

*bangs head on wall

Made a little progress tonight.

Re-poured the first half of the mold. The only stuff that was in stock was the high-strength crap that didn't fully cure last time. Fingers crossed.

We've had this thing in the dining room and the wife and kids have been using it with Zune/Ipod and it's been difficult to get it back to the garage for work.

Got it back down tonight, gutted it, and give it more stain. Decided to put a dark walnut stain on the walnut veneer to make it stand out. I think it looks better like this. Not as plain.

Tomorrow it should start getting some matte clear. :D

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Made progress today. The re-pour of the high-strength silicone seems to be a success so it seems that the first half of the mold is good. Now I need to wait for more silicone to come in stock before I can pour the 2nd half - making sure to use mold release. :roll:

Also got the first layer of matte finish on.
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