Fridgador- a Cigar Humidor

This is my first instructable, I found this idea on instuctables to make a cigar humidor out of an antique fridgerator. I will site my source at the end of this instructable. I bought a 1940's GE fridgerator for $50 off of criagslist. It was in pretty good shap no rot or rust.

The tools you will need for this project are, assortment of regular screwdrivers, sandder, sand paper, respiratory, gloves, chrom polish, and rags. Pictures will be added.

The first thing I decided to do here was disasemble the fridge. I started with the fridge door and worked my way into fridge. I took the time to label baggies of all the nuts and bolts, so I wouldn't forget where everything went. The next thing I did was take out the fridge compressor. BE VERY CAREFUL not to brake the frion lines for at least in my fridge the lines were still full. DISPOSE OF PROPERLY. I found a guy to take it off my hands in the phone book.

I sanded down the fridge door, drawer and top down with 50 grit sand paper and worked my way up to 120. all sanded down to 120 grit.

started cleaning all sanded pieces with a clean rag and some orange cleaner. getting ready for primer.

First I wiped down the fridge with a rag to make it free of any dust, then began to use a rust-oleum primer, to prime the fridge. I chose rust-oleum because I really like how it cover I'm sure I could have used another paint on or car paint primer, but hey it's what I wanted to do. After the first prime, I sanded the fridge parts down to get rid of any runs or deffects from the primer. I used a 320 grit sand paper to get the job done, then I re-primed.

I was looking online and on instuctables for a good way to polish chrome. I found a few different ways to do this. I was really worried that I would ruin the chrome if I sanded it down, so I found Brasso cleaner and polish, it took the pitted chrome and made it smooth and shinney. There were some seriously pitted parts, and it was able to clean it well. I wish I took a before and after of how the polish worked, next time will have to do.

I chose to paint the fridge a brown color for my base color, next is to stain.

I decided to make the fridge look like it was put together with pieces of drift wood. I. did this by taking a greyish wood stain and painting it all in one direction. Later I will add more tarnish and weather it in the next few steps, then onto the reconstruction, and shelf construction.

Here we start to put everything back together bolt by bolt. I saved every bolt that I took out and put them in labeled bags to make my life a whole lot easier. I started with the top fridge I added new r30 insulation into the hollow part of the door, they originally had cardboard as their insulation. I oiled all the bolts so that everything would fit nice and go in nice and easy. after taking apart the door twice, from not remembering how the latch setup went, we finally got it together. On to the freezer or storage door. I'm not from the 1940s so I have no idea what they used the bottom draw for. if anyone knows I would like to know. I am using it for the humidifying unit that I am putting in there. With the doors now assembled, we move on to the shelf construction and installation of the humidifier and lights, and hopefully a cigar or two.