Kevin's Projects
Jukebox, Lighting and Software Development
Concept Intro
Welcome to the Art Deco Jukebox Concept And Build Explanation.
I have noticed I am getting alot of hits to this page but I want some email feedback before I go ahead and update this much more. If you want to more details of the build let me know! If it is specific to a certain area of the build that is fine also. adigitaldj1@sbcglobal.net
I have spent the last 3 years working on my Jukebox project and deciding on how i wanted to light it up. I started with alot of ideas and changed my mind along the way on the whole aspect of the build. What i wanted was not what i was seeing on the web in the jukebox forums etc. There was a couple of great projects but not what i wanted. Since i had experience in most of the build aspect, sound from being a disc jockey for 25 years and dealing with sound issues for alot of different venues and public address setups I had the sound covered. One of my other hobbies was computers so I had some experience in that area. Next was a hobby in wood working and remote control model boat building throughout the years, now i had the cabinet covered . I decided i wanted something that was going to be different than anything i had ever seen and this would include some ideas from an old hobby I had of collecting vintage radios also my interest for the decades of the 20's, 30's, 40's and to include the Art Deco period. I also had a love of lighting ever since I was a kid and bought one of my first kits, it was a color organ in the 70's that would control incandescent lights to flash with music. I didn't want anything that looked like a game machine or had computer speakers, i wanted it to have a full sound system and would Rock!
So My Journey Began!
Concept Drawings
The first drawing that i did somewhat represents what i was wanting. Of coarse scratch the sub idea(don't need it). Subs are ok if your going to watch a movie, but come on it's a jukebox besdies subs in audio are only good for rap crap. I planned on both bass speakers being side by side to try and keep some stereo sepration of coarse this changed later on as I added 2 15" bass speakers, now who needs subs! The 15" give some good natural kick butt bass. You can also see I wanted the midrange and tweeters up at head level. This in my opinion gives better sound quality and is not absorbed into the rooms furniture etc. You can also see where I had planned on using some commercial lighting, scratched that idea because it was too expensive and besides I wanted to build my own. 
The second Drawing was a little better since it showed a more 3 dimensional look. As you can see the concept was there. Now I was shooting for that Art Deco look with the columns and the idea of adding some blue lights. I had no idea when I drawed this up how much work is was going to be to actually cut all of this out. I was in for a suprise because now I have to make patterns, a special jig and a large sanding table to get everything sanded really nice. So not only am I building a jukebox but I have to make some of the tools to make it.
The third drawing was with colored pencils to get a better idea of the look a was going for. Though I am showing the wood to be natural I later was going to do black laquer but my brother talked me out of it and we decided natural wood would look better. I did go one step further by adding blue cobalt acrylic mirror to definately give it that deco look for sure. Alot of my inspiration came from early sparton radios.
Build Intro
Under Construction !
I will attempt to explain what I have done along the way on my build to the best of my memory. If there is anything that I don't explain very well or you have questions about please ask in the forum or contact me by Clicking Here!
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