I've had this variac laying around for about 40 years - and I know it's older than that. Once I set up my bench, I knew I wanted to have isolated, variable AC, and thought this was a good opportunity to put this to good use. I knew I wanted to show off the variac, so I decided on acrylic top and side panels. The knob was made from a block of decorative wood and spray painted a hammered pewter finish. The volt meter is from Ebay, powered by a canibalized nine volt switch mode wall wart.

The finished build is fed from a Stancore GIS-500 500W isolation transformer, and is tucked back on a shelf on the bench - out of the way, but within easy reach. Downstream from the variac is my dim bulb limiter, rounding out my protected variable AC.

You can check out my video about the setup here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I2OV6w1XrY