[David Dunlop]

I have been excited to be making some progress on the restoration of the Spare Parts Case for my 52-Set, but suddenly realized this morning I need to pause for a moment and focus on the Kimpak padding installed in this case. It is near minty, but I lost sight of the fact my other Spare Parts Case is in rough shape. The Kimpak padding is all still there, but pulled away in a few places and I need to pay attention to how it was installed, if I hope to make any decent attempt as restoring the second case. The best starting point for this documentation was to determine how this padding was mounted inside the Spare Parts Case.

My first thought when I obtained the first, rough shape Spare Parts Case several years ago was that is was simply glued in place and the parts of the padding that had come loose over the years were simply the result of the water damage the case encountered overall: the old ‘animal glues’ issue, end of story. Having now carefully vacuumed the dust and dirt out of this Spare Parts Case with a soft bristle brush attachment, I discovered the Kimpak padding was actually stapled in place. I am not sure what the actual name/type of staple is, or what the staple gun actually looks like, but it must have been an autofeed type of gun and probably air driven.

These two photos show the heads of two of the staples in the Kimpak padding fitted to the inside of the lid of the Spare Parts Case. The staple heads are roughly centre in each photo. My best measuring efforts suggest an inner spacing of the staple of 1/8-inch and an outside length of the head at 5/32-inch. I have no idea how long they are, but may see if one is available for extraction from the rough case to find out.

There is definitely a copper look to these staples, but they are magnetic, so I wonder if the staples were copper plated as a form of lube as they were driven from the staple gun to reduce wear on the gun itself? Determining the optimum air pressure for the staple gun must have been interesting. The wood is Pine, so not hard and the padding is just a fancy paper product, so you would want the head to nicely hold the padding in place but not punch right through it.

It is interesting how 80 years on from the manufacture of the 52-Set and all its components, we can struggle figuring out how they did it all, largely by hand and brain power, yet 80 years ago, all these manufacturing skills and techniques were day to day common events.

More to follow on the Kimpak padding installation shortly.



David