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You are here: Home / Just For Fun / Build A Beer-Keg Radio

Build A Beer-Keg Radio

January 30, 2012 By Jay Brooks

radio
Here’s a fun one for the DIY crowd, from the June 1938 issue of Popular Science.

Pop-Sci-June-1938

The two-page instructions explained to readers how to build their very own Beer-Keg Radio. It was for your, you know, “game room.” Who doesn’t have one of those?

beerkegradio

It seems DIY was a lot less spoon-fed with detailed instructions back in the 1930s. There were only vague directions, giving a lot of flexibility to the project. Here’s the parts list you’ll need to build the radio:

keg-radio-4

And here’s the schematic you’re meant to follow and duplicate:

keg-radio-3

The introduction is priceless, here’s how they start out:

keg-radio-text-1

Curiously, they actually tell readers to get a wine barrel and that they can later turn it into a beer keg. By 1938 were wooden beer barrels already that scarce? I honestly don’t know, obviously, but that seems like strange advice.

keg-radio-text-2

Here’s what it would look like, before closing the top of the keg.

keg-radio-1

After closing, the radio works with two knobs on top.

keg-radio-2

After it’s done, “‘you’ll get a barrel of fun’ from this novel radio.”

keg-radio-5

If you want to see the pages full size and build one yourself, here’s Page 1 and Page 2.

Filed Under: Just For Fun, Related Pleasures Tagged With: Cask, History, Kegs



Comments

  1. beerman49 says

    February 3, 2012 at 9:48 am

    This sounds like a project for Dave Suurballe!

  2. Steve says

    June 23, 2013 at 2:32 pm

    While at a swap meet today, I found a small version of this radio! I hadn’t seen any like it so I bought it. It looks just like the one above, but the barrel is smaller, with the speaker in the other end. I can hardly wait to take it apart and see the “works”.

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