Quote:
Originally Posted by kevin powles
Mike, it appears The Canadian 11 set tray is All Alluminum, I have talked to few guys in Canada who have confirmed this. Now I have a delima to make an Australian version or Canadaian,? I have a volunteer worker at the Royal Signals museum sending me some pics of one in a glass case there, he doesn't know the country if manufacture but he is going to find out, if British we might be able to confirm the British manufacture method for the tray. Here a pic of it.
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The British one will be steel.
Britain had a steel industry (also Dunlop and similar rubber companies), Canada had/has shedloads (technical term) of hydroelectric power, aluminium smelters (due to cheap electricity) and forests. This caused interesting variations in the materials used for WW2 hardware. British made Telephone Sets D Mk. V have steel cases, Canadian ones are Aluminium. The British made Aerial Base No.8, Mounting No.3 is a thick rubber moulding (later ones were a steel donut with rubber gaskets), the Canadian one is plywood with cork gaskets. The "Piece, Packing" for the WS19 variometer can be Bakelite (UK), Rubber or wooden (Canadian), pressed steel (US) or cast aluminium (post-WW2 Italian).
I'd imagine the Australian carrier is also steel, since they made the WS19 aerial mount N0.3 (the very tall one) out of steel with a steel spring where everyone else used rubber and aluminium.
It's all down to availability of materials at the time.
Chris.