[Arran]

You can also use aniline based wood dye on the white wood, but I have used fabric dye (Ritt) with much the same effect, although you have to heat the fabric dye solution to get it to penetrate. The white woods they used were things like poplar, maple, or beech, and occasionally ash, tulip poplar was what they liked to use for moldings since it's a softer hardwood and relatively blemish free. I refinished a Canadian Westinghouse AC/DC set (1949 vintage) using mahogany gel stain, the top and sides were made out of strips of maple which were intended to be tone sprayed, they came up like butcher block. This is a common enough radio that really wasn't worth much, and it was sort of plain and boring, so experimenting with the finish wasn't a big deal, I wouldn't have done that with a more collectable radio though.
Regards
Arran