I have a nice early Zenith, but it's missing a few pieces of trim that I'd really like to find a way to restore. Hoping one of you guys has some trick for restoring these without trying to track down an ultra rare replacement.

The good news is that one side has the original piece while the other side is missing it, so I was thinking maybe pop off the remaining one and create a mold, then use wood textured mold material to create the replacement. Obviously would need to then stain the replicated piece before gluing it to the cabinet.

Another alternative I thought of was using a 3d printer as you can also get wood textured material to "print" with. My wife is planning to get me one of these for xmas, so maybe I can give that a shot using some camera software to scan the originals without even removing them from the radio.

Anyone had success with these or is there a better way?

Here's some pictures of the pieces and their missing counterparts...

The most obvious solution is to simply carve a new one from wood. This looks relatively simple by carving standards, and if you have a template to go by to lay it out, that's an hours work. No particular artistic ability would be required, you already know what it is supposed to look like. Might take a couple of tries, but that's sure what I would do.

Brett

I don't think I'm experienced enough with carving to achieve that. I could probably make the side trim piece as it would just be a strip of wood I could take a router to match that pattern as closely as possible. The pedal piece on the front and the leg part are out of my league for wood carving though.

I have a Majestic Treasure Chest that was missing a lot of the trim accent pieces when I got it. I bought a epoxy mold making kit at Hobby Lobby that worked really well. My pieces were probably smaller than yours, but I had never tried anything like that before, and it turned out fine. I had to pry off a good piece, then made a mold from it. The coloring took a little trial and error, but eventually I got it pretty close. They have different dyes you can add to the epoxy.

Wasn't too expensive I don't think. Maybe worth a try?

Good luck,
Travis

+!, I second the motion. Make a casting from plastic or epoxy, stained or painted to match.
No, I haven't done this myself, but mean to try. A Packard Bell I have is missing one grill bar.

I don't know if anyone is paying attention to this post anymore but if you look at my post of the Brunswick mod 22 restoration I had to carve a piece for the leg just like this one. It's amazing to me that these legs were square in all the fancy areas and 4 little carved pieces were glued on to make them fancy looking. It's not real hard to carve one of these pieces. Use basswood or poplar. They are solid and not hard to carve. With a small belt sander and xacto knife anyone can carve these especially since you have an original one to look at.