Art Deco Zenith 5-s-29 Radio Case Mod

The Build Begins

I started cutting out the pieces for the Zenith. I am using all oak for the case. Oak is such a wonderful wood to work with. Having built other cases first out of pine and more recently out of poplar, I still find oak to be the best to work with.

I drew the front grill cutout on the front piece, and spent several hours sanding and cleaning up the cutout areas. This is what you get for being picky. A dremel and a mouse sander are my friends here.

I also cut out the other pieces using a scrollsaw. A scrollsaw works much better than trying to use a jigsaw as jigsaw blades bend and make for angled cuts whereas the scrollsaw holds both ends of the blade.

I made a mount for the PSU out of 1/8in smoked brown acrylic as well as mount for the bottom fans.

Radiator Mount

When I made the radiator mount, it was a real pain in the neck. My plan is to use 18 gauge sheet metal, but my holesaw bit didn't want to cut through it. It wasn't bi-metal, so I ordered a new bi-metal bit off of Ebay, but didn't want to wait on it to come in before building this. I worked on a mount using 1/8in acrylic, but it just wasn't sturdy enough for me. So I went back with a jigsaw and hand cut all of the fan holes. I don't plan on doing that again. It worked well enough, but having bits of hot metal beating you in the arms is no fun.

All Parts So Far...

Here is a pic of all of the parts that I have cutout. I am almost done cutting them out. I still have to cut out for the escutcheon and knobs in the front and the air vent in the top.


I ordered the replica knobs, escutcheon (brass bezel for the dial), replica dial, grill cloth, and glass dial cover. The guy at the antique shop I ordered from goofed up my order twice, so I had to wait an additional week for the last knob to arrive.