I've had a couple of twin-pot glue 'kettles' for donkey's years for hide glue - a small one and a larger one - which I heat up on a thermostatic electric hotplate, but frankly, for most people doing the occasional job veneering a flat panel, using hide glue is a bit of a faff and if the veneer you use has an open grain, the hide glue all to easily comes through to the surface and you get it on the veneer hammer and start to get into a bit of a mess. Even more so if you use an electric iron! The smell of it - to sensitive souls with sensitive nostrils - is an unpleasant reminder of what it's made from, and hence, not really a product to use if there are vegetarians in the family.
BTW, they're called 'hammers' because cabinet makers in days gone by traditionally used their conventional hammers to smooth the veneer down, but later they developed the now standard veneer 'hammer', which is a misleading term as it's really a 'squeegee' - not a hammer. Easy enough to make - the two that I knocked up are shown below.
Lately I've tended to use 'Titebond' 'cold press veneer glue', which is much more convenient to use than hide glue and isn't expensive. There's a short video at this link:
http://www.axminster.co.uk/titebond-...eneer-ax836045
There are lots of youtube videos on veneering, and some cover the use of PVA glue, whereby you coat the veneer and the panel with PVA, then let it dry, lay it in place and iron it on with an electric iron, which melts the PVA. Incidentally, when veneering large panels it's the norm to veneer both sides to balance the veneers and prevent warping, but on small panels of the type we're likely to encounter on radio cabinets, that not an issue.
Hope that's of interest.
Good luck with the cabinet.