Art Deco Zenith 5-s-29 Radio Case Mod

Dial Needles and Mounting

I wasn't able to get original needles for the dial, so I made my own ones, and I'm very pleased with the way this turned out. It took quite a bit of fiddling with this to make it work. I had a good front pic of the dial area of the case that I resized in Photoshop to the actual dial dimensions. I traced the "Z" needle onto a new layer in PhotoShop, printed that layer out, taped it onto carbon paper with blue painter's tape, and traced and cut out the pattern on some 1/8in smoked acrylic.

I mistakenly painted the needles first before drilling the center hole, so I had to sand them back down and after fitting later repaint them. I also used a dremel and thinned out one of the needles to be less than 1/8in so that they would easily fit under the dial glass.

I cut a circle larger than the hole area, mounted it to the backside, and drilled holes for two metal LCD mounts.


There is a short piece of 3/8in dowel going between the back mount and the dial and needles so that the needles can be tightened into place without pulling back on the dial. I will fill in the slot on the screw with a bit of caulk and put a drop of white paint on it after it is mounted permanently so that the brass and screw slot aren't visible.

This is with the hole dial in place to give you an idea of how it will look. The needles will of course be painted their respective white and red.

Front Trim

I took my router and a 3/4in slot cutting bit and routed out the backside of the front grill to reduce the front depth from the full thickness of the wood (3/4in) to 3/8in. I also allowed enough room to put in trim pieces to hold the front grill cloth in place. It doesn't matter that the edges aren't straight as they will be covered with trim. I then spent quite a bit of time rounding over all of the corners to give the trim a fluted appearance.


Getting the front and top trim pieces cut out was a real pain. The trim strips are only 5/16in wide x 1/4in thick, and the cutouts are only 1/16in wide. It took me several different bits and tries. I first tried a 1/16in slot cutting router bit, but it snapped in two after just the first try. I tried several Dremel bits also. Finally it was a little cutting wheel bit that did the trick. I set up a jig so that I could evenly and at the right depth pass the cutting wheel over the trim pieces to cut the grooves.