Art Deco Zenith 5-s-29 Radio Case Mod

Escutcheon

The escutcheon was painted with some nasty yellowish paint. I should have taken a before picture of this. It looked really nasty. Go figure why anyone would take brass and paint it! I stripped it, got all of the tarnish off, buffed it with a dremel, and gave it three coats of spray laquer to keep it from tarnishing. Here is the result.

Base

I started assembling the base trim pieces. I cut and used dowel rods on the middle support piece, and glued and screwed in two corner pieces for the front to side connections.


To accommodate the DVD drive, I decided on a slot loading DVD just under the trim lip. I cut out the slot for the drive, and used my Black and Decker Dremel clone to cut out an inset on the backside where the DVD sits so that will be only 3/16in from the front edge.

Front Escutcheon Mount

I wanted an easy way to mount the dial and dial glass. The dial and glass are 3 7/8in diagaonal, and the inside circle of the escutcheon is 3 3/8in. So I came up with the hole in a hole idea. The one problem was how to cut this. The only rabbit bit that I have is a 3/8in depth cutting bit so using my scrollsaw I first cut out a 3 1/8in hole.

I then used the router with rabbit bit to cut out the 3 7/8in hole, making it 3/8in deep, which is the depth of the escutcheon, dial, and dial glass. I then recut the 3 1/8in hole to be 3 3/8in with the scrollsaw. This way, the dial and dial glass just set down inside of the hole under the escutcheon. I'll put a piece of clear acrylic behind the hole to mount LEDs into, and to mount a fake radio needles which I will make. A power switch is also in place so you can see where it goes.

Here is a pic with the escutcheon, dial, dial glass, and three of the knobs placed where they will go. I hadn't received the 4th knob from the guy who messed up my order yet.