Radio Cabinet Restore

So this is a 1930's Coronado radio cabinet.  I got this from a guy who was liquidating his uncle's radio collection after he passed.  He had literally hundreds and hundreds of radios in barns, sheds, house, etc.  This particular one, I have a special "modern technology" update I'm doing to it.  Before any purists call me out on this - it has NO chassis, and the cabinet itself was very close to "firewood" as far as shape and dryness.  By the way, Coronado radios were a store "house" brand for Gimbels department stores.  Anyone remember them?

Ok some "before" shots;

And here is after wipe down with mineral spirits and stripping with lacquer thinner (I have since gone back and got more out of the nooks and crannies with a small brush as well);

And that's where it sits now.  I have some toned lacquer on order so I hope to spray it very soon.  I'm leaning towards opaque toner for the top, edges and bottom, and the more translucent kind (slight lighter in color) for the front and sides.  We shall see how it turns out - by far not a "showroom quality" piece to be sure, but hopefully it will be at least presentable at the conclusion of this.

Ok, got a little more time, sanded more of the top and then shot it with shellac clear sanding sealer and then 6 coats of Mohawk medium dark toner lacquer - here is what we got;

Here is after I did the main body with Mohawk Ultra Medium Walnut and before clear coats. Got a shiney spot on top where I had to do some touchup - not sure how that is going to work out yet.

And just to cause longer page loads, here is a couple shots after clear was put on;

Pallet Cooler

Having snagged a few pallets from work, I decided I better do something with them before the spousal unit has a fit.  Digging around the interwebs, I ran across a stand up cooler made from them!  Perfect!  After watching a few youtube video's of others builds, I took from most of them, added my own twist and ended up with this;

It was really a fun build! I've shown it to a few people and have now committed to building 2 more of them myself, and assisting on another 2.  Some of the features;

• Bottle opener mounted to the side... for Corona's and other non-twisty top bee.. sodas!
• Plumbed in a valve that has a garden hose sized connection on the side.  This allows me to connect a piece of garden hose and drain the cooler off the deck without a wet mess everywhere!
• All but 2 support pieces of wood (for the under side of the cooler) came from pallets at no cost and would have gone to the dump otherwise.
• Cheap!  Well - ish...  I figure about $60 in parts with the cooler, plumbing fixtures, hinges, handles, opener et al.

All in all, was really worth the hastle to do - I bet I have 12 hours plus into the build, but subsequent builds will go much faster. Tearing down the pallets is a LARGE chunk of the build time.

The next build I call "version 2.0" has a few minor updates - wider side shelves to hold drinks easier as you put-them-in or take-them-out. Plus that allows me to also attach handles made from the "tops" of the legs as well for easier moving.

To see how to build this check out this page.