Vintage Radio Converted Into Steampunk Masterpiece

Hacker Matt “Spyrul” Van Gastel has been in possession of his great-grandparents’ 1930s-era Westinghouse tube radio for the last 12 years, intending to one day restore it to its former glory. When he finally got around to the project, he found that it might be more trouble than it was worth to try and restore the electronics, and instead opted to transform it into something even more awesome.

He first removed the amplifier unit from the housing, then stripped out the internal wiring and components. After quite a bit of cleaning, along with a new paint job, he replaced the internals with a Raspberry Pi and a JustBoom Amp HAT.

Externally, he added several simulated vacuum tubes and a new wooden frame. This gives it a nice steampunk look, while allowing him the modern convenience of streaming tunes from the Internet via Mopidy, an extensible music server written in Python.

You can see more of Van Gastel’s build over on Raspberry Pi’s blog here.