Updates and Such

It's been a little while since I have been here. It's funny because I have been busy doing various restorations. Just been a little lazy on posting some of that stuff on this blog site.

The poster sign I blogged about a few months ago was sold to a gentleman looking for some cool stuff to fix up his new 'Mancave'. It was just sitting in my basement in storage and doing nothing for me.

Since that happened, I bought another jukebox. This was a CD Playing unit made by Rowe built in 1991. I spent a little time trying to repair the overhead door on the unit and various electrical issues with the lighting. If you look in the top left of the photo, you can see the big crack in the door. I tried to repair the crack, but it kept cracking again and again. In the end, the cost to repair far outweighed what the machine was truly worth. So, I stripped it for it's parts, repaired and lubricated any of those parts that needed some TLC and started putting various parts up on eBay. I have already made my money back on what the unit cost me so any funds after that, go to financing any other projects I have going on.

If anyone is looking for parts for this machine, drop me a message and I will let you know if I still have what you are looking for.

In June, I picked up a third Jukebox. This was a Seeburg Mardi Gras which was built in approximately 1977. The unit looks like something the Bee Gees would have put in their hangout. This unit is also not without its issues. Mice had gotten into the cabinet and eaten the subwoofers and most of the insulation. Surprisingly though, they didn't damage any wiring.

The mechanism is also seized in the back and will require a complete tear-down and lubrication. It's a big undertaking so I suspect it will be a slow and careful process.The front middle bottom glass is also missing but otherwise, the unit is mostly in need of some cleaning up and adjustment. And new speakers.

 My Rock-Ola 484, which was the first unit I bought and what started my love for fixing more of these things is working great. I have been slowly buying new parts for it as I can find them and afford them. A few weeks ago, I sourced a new back access door for this one. All that's left in that project is to replace the locks and two small cosmetic pieces that are missing. Otherwise, the machine is working fantastic and I may eventually put it up for sale once I have more working units in my collection. Right now, it is kind of like my demo model as I have no way to show off my work if I do not even have a working model in my house.

I also picked up an old Marconi radio from the 1930's that I intend to work on, I have a Cuckoo clock from the 50's to clean up and repair for my Grandfather and just finished restoring a Sony Turntable from the 80's for a coworker who pulled it out of storage recently and found it was in need of some repair and calibration.

I will update this Blog in more detail as I go along with each of the above-mentioned projects. The hardest part is remembering to take pictures and to get them moved to this Blog site.

Till I Post Again!

The Commercial Movie Poster Sign

About 5 years ago now, I got my hands on this big commercial movie poster sign left over from a local Video Store that was closing down. I actually got two of them, but sold one soon after to a neighbour after giving it a once-over.

I haven't looked at this one in a while and decided to pull it out of storage. The unit is in good working order and the actual condition of the sign is also in pretty good shape. This thing stands at least 5 feet tall, 3 feet wide and a foot deep. It probably weighs about 40 to 50 lbs. The marquee lamps around the outside are custom to the sign, unfortunately, so I suspected that it would cost a fair chunk to replace the burned out ones. It has two industrial hooks on top and the sign is double-sided (so it can take two posters). However, the marquee lamps are only on one side of it.

So, instead of buying new bulbs, I replaced them with cheap LED's and the substitute worked pretty well for a while. They looked good and I was able to fill all of the sockets. The problem was that the LED's are not authentic and they tended to burn out quickly. I still had a handful of the original bulbs and replaced about a quarter of the LED's with what I still had in original bulbs. I admit that the original bulbs still look better.

I haven't decided yet if I am interested in putting the money into getting new bulbs for this thing or not. The company that manufactured it is still in business and still makes signage (BASS Industries located in the USA). You can still get the bulbs from the manufacturer, I'm sure. I figured this sign is almost 20 years old.

Without a poster in it, it is REALLY bright to the eyes and would probably make a good ceiling lamp if mounted sideways. That would probably make a pretty unique feature to a Man Cave or Rec Room. I am on the fence about selling it as is to pool my money towards things I am more interested in. In my last house, we had it hanging in the family room with it's own custom light switch on the wall. But we hardly ever turned it on.

Cycle Race Pinball Toy

A friend of mine picked up this little tabletop pinball toy manufactured by Marx Toys. I figure that it is probably from the late 70's to early 80's, just based on the 'Atari-Like' font they used on the front of the box. However, it is not affiliated with 'Atari' in any way from what I can tell.

He asked me to look at it as it wasn't working all that well considering it's age. So, I cracked it open on my home bench and discovered the simplicity of the toy. Basically, there is a metal ball bearing inside the table that is fired around like a real pinball machine. The bumpers on the surface have two contacts in them, one is a sprint to bounce the ball and the other contact is on the bottom under the spring. So, when the ball hits the contacts, it triggers an electromagnet inside that strikes a bell and also moves a mechanical points counter. Basically, that's all there is to it.

The flippers are moved manually with hand-grip levers that you squeeze. The ball launcher is also mechanical and works from the center of the table.

The ball and the contacts have become somewhat corroded over the years so the ball striking the contacts does not always trigger the electromagnet. I was going to pop the table open to clean up the contacts but found that the table is actually assembled in such a way that you would have to break it permanently to get it open. So, unfortunately, this is one old vintage device that is better off not being messed with.

So, I basically just cleaned it up and oiled a small lever connected to the magnet and bell. The bell is louder now but the contacts are still flaky. That's okay, it isn't the real deal and I doubt the owner is very concerned about that anyway. He just thought it was a neat toy from the days of his childhood.

It would make a better decoration on a shelf or hung on the wall I think than anything else.

The Rock-Ola is Cleaned Up Now!

It's exciting that I have managed to clean up my Rock-Ola. After replacing a few obvious problem components and lubricating some easy to access mechanics, the machine seems to be in amazing working order.

I put some good favourite tunes into it and we set it up in our front office. So, intimate enough that if you turn it down, you can privately enjoy some tunes or that it can also be loud enough to be heard across the main floor of the house.

I think that in the not too distant future, I will actually strip the machine right down to be repainted and to grease and oil even the things I didn't get the first time. But for now, it's working really good so I will just let the family enjoy it for a while.

A good friend of mine has been coaxing me to make some offers on more machines that have been appearing online so I can start restoring them and flipping them. He is interested in being a silent partner, so to speak, and to help me out financially if I am serious about making this kind of thing into a more professional hobby. It's something I have to think about as I don't really have the best facilities to work on these things or to store them. My basement is ideal and where my main workshop is, but hauling those machines up and down the stairs could be asking for disaster.

I do have a garage, mind you, but it is small and not exactly secure. I will have to think on the idea a bit more. My heart tells me 'Yes' but my brain tells me to keep my feet on the ground.

Update for the Sony Receiver

Well, I cleaned out the Sony receiver. Mostly just what looked like a bit of sawdust material throughout the inside of it. There was nothing wrong with any of the components so that was a plus. So, I cleaned it out and greased the tuning controls as they were really dried out. I also pulled the tuner display off and cleaned out all the dust that was in behind it.

Then I sprayed contact cleaner into all of the control knobs and switches to get rid of the crackly noises they were making. After making sure the controls were completely dried out after a couple of days, I plugged it in and took it for a test drive. Still sounds amazing. Even better now that the controls have stopped crackling.

A little furniture polish on the wood cover and it looks really good. I might keep it around for my workshop to test audio equipment that I am working on (turntables and such) or just use the radio to keep me company while I work on other things.

A Healthy Sony Stereo Receiver

A few years ago, a friend of mine gave me an older Sony Receiver from around 1981 possibly. The unit is not a high-performance amp by any means but sounds amazing when combined with other analogue equipment such as a record player or old cassette deck. So, since it was already in working order, I decided to use it straight from there for exactly the above mentioned reasons.

However, recently, my Rock-Ola investment kind of pushed the other receiver and turntable to the sidelines for a while because the jukebox had to go in the place where the other setup was. That's okay because it gave me time to finally pull the unit apart and get a look at it.

The only obvious issues it seemed to have is crackly control knobs and some obvious dirt and debris trapped in the tuner display area. Both are not a surprise with a vintage electronic. I opened the chassis and was pleasantly surprised that every thing inside is in good shape and there are no failing caps or signs of overheat. Just what looks like a lot of sawdust.

So, I should be able to clean the controls really easily and clean the dust out of it. Not a difficult task. I did find one part of the circuits that looked a little questionable but not an issue for performance. I may put some shrink tubing on those connections. I took a picture of what I was referring to but I am not sure how well it will translate in the photo.

It is as though they realized that they needed to put two components into one space, so they bridged the parts together in a 'V' formation to make it work. I definitely found that odd as I have never seen something like that before. You would almost think it would have been better to put part of it underneath, but, whatever.

There is also a big Red plastic enclosed piece in the middle of the board with no identifiable appearance to it. It just has a model number and says it is 'Patent Pending' by Sony. I'll have to look that one up.

Well, I just started on this project out of boredom of waiting for the other parts to come in for my Rock-Ola. Besides, I don't have much else going on in the cold and dreary Canadian winters.

The Parts Are Rolling in for the Rock-Ola

I had to order many of my new components through eBay, mostly because I found that the local electronics suppliers charge way too much for small parts in some cases. I'd love to buy locally instead of overseas, but I blame that on the local merchants. I have to wait a lot longer for things to arrive, but the time I wait patiently for parts still pays off in the long run.

Anyway, this was not a rant about economics so I will move on. I replaced the obvious parts in the power supply and was able to put it back in the Rock-Ola. I suspect that the caps I replaced there will affect the bad humming sound I was getting whenever the audio kicked in to play a record. I also recapped about half of the amplifier, again only replacing the visually obvious parts first. I did poke around and test other components and really only found a bad diode otherwise that may also contribute to the hum probably I was noticing.

So, the unit powers up again with no issues but part of the electronic selector circuits are still located in the amplifier that I haven't put back in yet. I greased or oiled as many mechanical parts as I could and those parts are moving much smoother. I even solved a record retrieval issue the unit was having just by updating the grease.

So hopefully I get the last of my parts this week and can put this machine back together. And if I am satisfied with the audio quality and overall performance of the machine, then I will look at the cosmetic issues like chipped paint, scratches and such.

But so far, so good. This is very exciting!

Can You Call It Furniture? A Rock-Ola Restore!

I haven't posted anything on here in a while. So, since I am currently very pre-occupied with my latest acquisition, I am going to count it as a blog topic.

I picked up this 1981 Rock-Ola Jukebox (Model 484) from a guy on Kijiji who had it for sale for $200 and said that it was in working order. So, the evening of New Year's Eve 2014, I travelled across Edmonton to get a look at it and see if it was going to be a worthwhile investment. Sure enough, the previous owner powered it up and demonstrated that it was working.

He had originally picked it up through a liquidation sale of an old business (bar) with the hopes of having the time and the energy to fix it up himself. Instead, it was sitting in his dining-room where his family should have been eating. So, I decided to buy it.

The irony of this was, it wound up sitting in my dining-room for about a week before I found a better home for it. I was pretty quick to get it open and start poking through it to see what needed to be done. It was really dirty and smelled like a cigarette which isn't that surprising if it sat in a bar for 20 years. I noted that the flourescent tubes were due for replacement, it was full of badly worn country music 45's but I left them in there for testing purposes. It definitely needed some new lubrication, a few minor alignment adjustments and the left channel was not working. It has LED digital displays on it and they seemed to suffer from a weird flicker pattern. I took a guess that this was probably going to need further investigation.

As I had expected, I pulled a few of the modules out of it (yes, everything is in modules for easy repair - amplifier, coin selector, record selector and so forth) and found a number of bad capacitors and one darkened circuit board, due to overheating. I was not at all surprised at the capacitors. I was glad that the record stylus was still in great condition and all of the mechanisms are still functioning.

So, currently, it is partially sitting in my living-room (the hull) and other components are down on my work bench awaiting ordered replacement parts. So far, replacement parts are going to cost me around $60.00 including shipping and a few hours of my time. Most of the issues were located in the amplifier and power supply modules, nothing in the computers and digital parts. I did find decent prices on whole modules available on various Jukebox parts resellers, but many of those parts are almost as used as the ones I have and will probably need the exact same work anyway.

The photo with the orange capacitor shows you what condition many of them were in. There is a little bit of tar popping out of the right side of this one. The fix? About $3.00.

I figure this entire restoration may cost me no more than $100 on top of what I have already paid for the machine. I would say that this will be worth the time and labour, especially when I can sit back and enjoy my handiwork.

I haven't decided yet if I plan to flip it after I am done restoring it? It would be awesome to find another one that is just a bit nicer and do this all over again until I work my way up to one of those nice old Chrome jobbies from the 50's or 60's. Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves, I guess.

How It Starts is Not Always How It Ends

I kind of took this weird old cabinet that a friend gave to me and decided I was going to strip it down, flip it on it's back and make a storage chest out of it complete with a padded cloth interior. However, the project sat around for about 3 years never really seeing any progress. I was just a bit too wrapped up in my Phonograph restoration.
Finally, after moving to my new house, I was determined to do something with it. I got it out of storage and started making a lid for it out of old pine slats I had left over from an old Futon I had stripped down a few years ago.

At the same time, I had a plastic tote full of wood scraps and other odd pieces of left over furniture remnants that I would keep around for our fireplace we had in our old house. Nothing painted or treated of course, just plain scraps. Our new house doesn't have an indoor wood burning fireplace, so the wood pieces were basically just in my way.

We decided to buy one of those little outdoor fire pits for our patio and could use the scraps in there. I wanted to put the tote outside but the wood would get wet and the tote would just hold water. I decided that the storage cabinet project I started would make an excellent outdoor wood storage box. I realized that I just didn't need that cabinet for anything else.

I slapped some outdoor paint on it and some fancy wood feet from an old Ikea-like cabinet we had decided not to use those feet on. Works much better now. And it keeps the wood mostly dry without sealing up any moisture.

The Condo Birdhouse

I whipped together a two story birdhouse for our garden out of scrap pine I had left over from a cabinet project I started and never finished. Before we moved to our new house about 6 months ago, we had a successful birdhouse on the back of our old house that my youngest son had made me for Father's Day a few years back.

He was sad that we had to leave it behind, but I explained to him that the birds would return again next year and their house would be gone. So, we left it behind in the hopes that the new owners would also leave it up there.

My son missed having the birds to watch so I made a new unit for our new house. But this time, I wanted to make two small houses out of one. We haven't had anything take up residence yet, but then, it took about a year for the last one to work out either. So, here's hoping.

The Phonograph Was Completed.

I just wanted to update that I finished that phonograph project. I apologize that after all the hard work I put into it, I neglected to take a final photo. However, I will report that the owner was so very happy to get his device back in near original condition (except for a few parts I had to replace) and said he used it for almost a week straight trying out his boxes of old 78's he had lying in storage.

A job well done.

Updates on the Antique Phonograph Project

Hello All,

It's been a while since I have posted anything new on here. Just wanted to add some updated photos to show my progress with that Antique Phonograph I have been working on over the past few years. I finally made some serious headway this summer, which is very exciting.

For those that are new to this, I was given an old Crank Phonograph from a friend that had suffered some serious moisture damage to it's cabinet. Mice had also taken residence in this thing at some point as well. He wanted to see if I could salvage any of it or if it was just a write-off. He was willing to pay for a restoration if one was even possible.

As you can see from the photo to the right, it was in very rough shape. Two legs had fallen off and the side panels were completely rotten and falling apart in thin sheets. The cabinet doors on the front were also completely rotted. The good news was that the chamber that held the actual phonograph parts and the surrounding surfaces were still in excellent shape. The gear system for the turntable was also still intact only because it was completely covered in grease. In the above photo, all of the chrome and hardware is being stored in the blue container to the left of the cabinet.

It's been almost 3 years since I started this project and I am very proud of how far I have come with it. It took a lot of work to determine what was still usable and what would have to be replicated. Then to strip down what was still good and refinish the entire cabinet to as close an approximation as I could. It was also lucky that the mechanical parts are still working almost as good as they did in the day. Just a little bit stickier than they used to be.

The photo beside was taken before I put the new front doors on it. All I have left to do now is put the bottom back on and insert the record storage assembly. Then it will be complete.

The unit works really well and is very loud, especially on the high notes. Being that many of the records from it day are either Opera or Orchestral in nature, high notes are in abundance.

The funny coincidence is that I found a Christmas themed record stuck inside the frame itself. I will have it done before this holiday so that will probably be the first record I play on it for it's proud owner.

I would definitely tackle another project like this down the road if one was presented to me. I really enjoyed working on this.

Defrosting My Food (Part Three)

Okay, so I realized that using an old power supply unit was a good idea (see Part Two). However, it is also loud because the fan echoes around pretty badly inside this empty metal box.

The second problem I discovered was that not all plastic storage containers are created equal. I tried to defrost some frozen spaghetti on top of this unit, but the bottom of the plastic container does not have a flat surface where the frozen part will not make full contact with the top of this box. The solution was to put another aluminum heat-sink between the inner bottom surface of the container and rest the other half on the top of the PS warmer.

This seemed like too much fuss and making the defroster device was just too dangerous if I was forced to make more (for family or friends). My odds might be really good that I would eventually get hurt gutting the dangerous components out of the inside of the power supply. This also leaves a lot of waste still.

So, I decided to make the whole unit smaller by eliminating the PS box completely.

Why not just use the heat-sink and fan by itself ? Small enough to still fit under a plastic container, even with an indented bottom. And much quieter.

The unit in the photo above was made by a friend of mine from a concept drawing I gave him. We hadn't quite worked all the bugs out of the idea yet but this was much less complicated. He rigged his to work on a 9 volt battery and power switch. We found this design much quieter, more portable and more efficient overall.

Knowing that the look of the above prototype wouldn't win points with my wife (I don't want that thing in my kitchen!), I knew it needed to be refined again. Plus, the battery would probably not last long enough to actually do the job required.

So, one more design refinement and we had a nice looking unit that runs on a power supply through AC.

So, does it work? You bet.

I put two regular ice cubes in a small plastic container and set it on top of the new unit. The ice cubes completely melted in 1 hour and 40 minutes. Then, I took that same container and placed two identical ice cubes in it and set it on my desk. It took 3 hours and 20 minutes to do the same thing. And in case anyone is wondering, the room was at 23 degrees Celsius throughout the experiment.

I think it looks like a NASA Lunar Lander.

Defrosting My Food (Part Two)

So here is the second half of my project to defrost my lunch (or whatever else) utilizing old computer parts.

Warning: Be certain that if you are planning on replicating this project for your own use (which is fine with me), take extra special care when removing the circuit guts from the inside of the power supply unit. There are large capacitors and other assorted things that can quite possibly give you an electric shock, the likes of which you have never experienced. This shock can cause serious harm and quite possibly, death if you are not careful as to what you are doing. I will not be held responsible as this is strictly an experiment of my own and I am a certified computer technician who is well aware of the risks.

The first plan of attack I had was to gut an old computer power supply (PS) and use the box as a sort of plate/ air chamber defroster. I left the fan inside of the unit and attached it to the switch which is also already installed in the power supply. On the top plate, I attached an aluminum heat-sink from a processor and even used the 'transfer paste' between the two surfaces.

When this is assembled again, the fan will pull the air in from the ventilation side of the PS box, pull it across the heat-sink and out of the front of the unit. When you put something frozen on top of the (PS) box, the cold is transferred to the box itself and absorbed by the heat-sink. Pulling room temperature air across the heat-sink will help to warm it up.

I tested this device and found that it worked pretty well as expected.

Using Computer Parts and Science to Defrost My Lunch (Part One)

I have been a little absent lately. My only excuse is that life and priorities got in the way lately.

One thing will never change though. My need to create and re-purpose. And on that note, today's post is not so much about the re-use of furniture, but instead, old electronics or at least some parts of old electronics. Here was my dilemma:

I tend to be a person who forgets to plan ahead.  Possibly through procrastination or just out of already having too much on my mind or plate to realize that I missed something. In this case, I tend to forget most often to make a lunch at night before I go to bed. Or, I just get lazy and pass the chore off to the next morning. This is a bad idea of course on the best of days because I already know 'full-well' that I am a terrible morning person. Deep down inside, I know that I am just setting myself up for failure.

So what does one do if he is running late and doesn't plan ahead for lunch? He grabs a frozen leftover out of the freezer, throws it in his lunch-bag and runs to work. So, the new problem is that this leftover will probably not defrost before the lunch hour. Then I will waste most of my lunch hour trying to defrost the frozen center of my lunch in the microwave. Of course, all this causes is uneven food and heat distribution and you are forced to eat that frozen 'chunk' in the middle or toss it away completely. It also means that your coworkers will grow impatient because they need to 'nuke' their lunch as well (and may also have a frozen brick to contend with).

The trick I started using was that I would take out my frozen 'lump' and set it on top of my metal filing cabinet. The aluminum material in the cabinet acts as a natural hot/ cold absorber (ask any science teacher about natural temperature transfer and metals). This would help speed up the process, but would rely on the room's temperature and the natural distribution between cold and heat. This wasn't good enough for me, so I took it one step further.

I work in the IT department at my company and quite often have old or spare parts piling up in a corner of my office. If you have ever looked inside a computer, there is always one spot that holds a fan and a large aluminum 'fin-like' heatsink block directly under it. This serves to draw the heat away from your processor by transferring it to the aluminum and into the open air. The fan serves to help pull away the heat and replace it with cooler room-temperature, in effect, cooling down the processor beneath.

I also wondered how well this would work for frozen things?

Stay tuned because I have a few ideas I want to try out!

Security in a Creative Space

Over the past couple of years, I have had an issue with people of all ages trespassing through my yard at all hours of the night. The reason they do it is because I live in a cul-de-sac with an express way behind me. People will cut through my yard and hop my back fence because it is more convenient then having to go the long way around.

No, I wouldn't be such an ogre about it, except this has also lead to minor vandalism and my garage being broken into. Not to mention that I have two younger children who play back there. I don't need strangers appearing out of nowhere. In order to cut through my yard, you have to pass both doors into my house, both of my vehicles and my garage. Anything is possible if the wrong person comes through.

I have put up motion activated flood lights, fake cameras that blink when they see movement and even signs warning of cameras. Some people still ignore that. So, I decided that if I can't completely stop them other than to get a dog, I can at least keep an eye on my yard in case something does happen by putting in a REAL camera! The only problem with that is the outdoor units can be very costly. Especially the wireless style.

So, having a budget for a cheaper indoor wireless camera (works on your home wifi), I needed a way to protect it from the elements if I wanted to put it outside. I looked at plenty of options but couldn't really find anything related to my problem. While searching through my garage for anything that might work, I found a birdhouse that my youngest boy had given me for Father's Day sitting on the work bench waiting to be mounted somewhere. I decided that this is where I would put my camera.

I cut the front hole a little bigger, put an old flash-light 'clear' lens over the hole for weatherproofing, mounted the camera inside and hung it up on the garage. I know how a fantastic view of my driveway which also gives me a clear line-of-sight to the most vulnerable areas of my garage. I have a computer server that is always on, so I installed a free camera recording program and now, I can check the recordings later in the day to see what's been going on around the house.

Incidentally, the birdhouse was painted by my 7 year old.

A Guinea Pig Corral from an Old Futon

My sons have two Guinea Pigs. Usually, on average, once a week, they need to be changed. Unfortunately, it can be a difficult task seeing as there is nowhere else for the little guys to go while you are doing that. In the summer, we can take the Pigs outside and let them graze on the back lawn. As long as they are supervised, they are fine. Unfortunately, one of them likes to randomly run for it. And he's a fast little guy. Makes it difficult, especially when he gets underneath something and we can't get him out.

In the winter, we have the same problem but indoors of course. And there are far more dangers in the house like stairs or the risk of getting tripped over if you don't know where they went. I had an old futon frame sitting in the garage for a long time that I finally took apart. There was a lot of good pine pieces that could be used somewhere else. In this case, I used the pine pieces to build the Guinea Pigs a large pen or 'Corral'.

There's more room for them to run around and investigate things in there. Guinea's are naturally curious critters who like to push light objects around or climb inside of things. After a few hours in the pen, they are ready to go back in their cage and sleep it off.

If You Can't Get It, Make It! A Vintage Sign Replica.

I was renovating my office and couldn't come up with a theme that worked for me. I have always liked the industrial look and have a few artefacts around my house that would work well with the theme. I had an extra large 'No Parking' sign I found in an old barn which I grabbed (the site was about to be bulldozed anyway). I also had a yellow construction light and a few other street related things. So, I decided the street theme was the way to go.

One thing I have always wanted is a traffic light shell or something leftover from an old neon sign of any sort. I hit a few junk sellers and antique malls but couldn't find anything I liked (or could even come close to affording). Feeling a little discouraged, I moved forward with my renovation.

Along the way, an idea sprung to mind. If I couldn't have a real sign artefact, why couldn't I make one? With an image in my head and no plan, I dedicated a day to making myself an old neon arrow. I wanted this thing to look like I ripped it off an old weathered sign from some generic undisclosed location. I have to say that I was absolutely blown away with the final result. It turned out just as good as I imagined.

I made the arrow out of thin cheap pine, something they would normally just lay on a floor in a house. I used wood filler in the crevices to make it look like welds. I painted it with red primer which gave it the perfect weathered finish and followed up the simulated seams of the sign with silver paint. The silver gave it the illusion of paint flaking off to reveal steel or aluminium underneath.

Lastly, I went to the dollar store and purchased a bunch of glass night light bulbs and glued them randomly throughout the arrow to give it further neglect. However, the picture below shows Christmas lights I had originally installed. The lights seemed too new for the old arrow so I opted for the non-functioning version instead.

I fully intend on trying a few more projects like it because I really like the effect it creates. Maybe some full sized signs in the same sort of style.

Hey! Long Time, No See....

It turns out that I have been a very busy guy lately. I was laid off of my full-time job a few years ago and went back to the books to learn computer repair. I got myself certified A+ and went off to do a few retail computer technician jobs. Really, the bottom line is that retail REALLY sucks! I attempted to start a computer repair business of my own, which was actually starting to go somewhere. Unfortunately, I really didn't have the time I thought I did and eventually shelved the idea for now. During that time, I made some big changes in my personal life which unfortunately, put my furniture restorations on hold but did pay off on a personal level. Winter also had a hand in that. Turns out that running two electric heaters in my garage launched my electric bill up to almost $500 more in less than two months. Whoa! So, I wasn't getting anything done in the garage that year. The next year, someone broke into my garage and stole a bunch of random useless stuff which totaled to less than what the broken window will cost to replace. So, last winter, having a garage with an open window was really pointless to heat as well. I was happy that they didn't steal any of my tools or wood projects that were sitting in storage. However, after almost two years of working for low wages and high stress and trying to make it on my own, my former employer who had laid me off, hired me back but this time as an onsite computer tech and IT support. That was pretty exciting. I spent most of last year and this year, so far, completely renovating my basement level for a new bedroom, office area and a separate laundry room. I am just getting to the last little bits and pieces of that project and have actually started working on my furniture projects again. I am finally back and looking forward to updating everyone on what I have been doing since my last post over a year ago. Thanks for sticking around during my absence

Sanding the Phonograph

I started to sand down the old wood from what I had left of the phonograph. It's been tricky because I have been sanding off the old varnish with a coarse sandpaper. I can only use the coarse stuff to get the varnish off and then I have to stop before I start sanding away too much of the wood underneath. Then I use a lighter sandpaper to remove any deep stain or weather damage below the surface.

I would like to use a stripper instead but right now, being that it is -35C outside, opening a door and turning off the electric heat is not a good option. Fumes would be an issue not only for my health but also that it could ignite the heaters. I figure though, by the time I get to summer, it will be safe to open the big door to give the finished cabinet it's staining. Again, right now, in the winter, fumes are an issue even with new varnish.

The good news is that there is still some good pine under all that surface damage. The bad news is that I could be blowing through more than $20 just in sandpaper to get the cabinet prepped for reassembly and final varnish.