Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

The flags have now all be cleaned and received their new coat of white paint. I have used KRYLON Satin White #42420, my 'Go To' for flat white paint.

I slipped a small square of Post It Note paper under each pair of flags before spraying them. This paint sets up to the touch in about 15 minutes and I did not want the flags sticking to the mask paper underneath them, as I still have the flat black and luminous paints to apply. The best solution, therefore, was to slip the temporary papers under the flags and pull them out when finished spraying. Any paint sticking to these papers would not adhere, so I end up with nice clear edges on the flags.

This paint take 7 days to cure to a chip proof state, so the flat black will be applied next weekend.

David

[David Dunlop]

With some available free time today, I managed to get the masking of the Flick Indicator Flags for the flat black coat of paint sorted out and the painting done.

The flags are 13/16 inches long, split in the middle with the flat black paint being applied to the bottom halves. I decided to go with cut down strips of Post It Note paper again to mask off the upper halves of the flags. Once in place, I augmented them with small pieces of painters tape to ensure the guide edge for the paint stayed put when hit with the spray paint spray.

I measured back 13/32 inch from the glue end of each Post It Note and penciled a line across the top of a 3-inch square note. Then cut each note in half to form a pair of masks for each set of flags. Using the pencil line to line up at the top of each flag, I pressed them home and them did the painting tape thing to keep them all down.

Again, KRYLON is my go to paint and I was using their Satin Black #48823. About 10 to 15 minutes after the spay work was done, I removed the Post It Note masking, leaving just the original paper set down before starting work on the flat white paint earlier. Again, it will take about a week for the flat black to cure hard and then I will be able to do the hand application of the luminous Natural Green paint over top of the flat white upper sections of the flags.

David

[Chris Suslowicz]

You're making a beautiful job of this restoration.

Chris.

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

Originally Posted by Chris Suslowicz

You're making a beautiful job of this restoration.

Chris.

Agreed!! And a factory fresh example is going to put my yellow cigarette stained one to shame.

[David Dunlop]

Thank you for the kind compliments, Gentlemen.

This is certainly a much slower, planned process than anything I ever did with the 19-Sets years ago. Lack of comprehensive overhaul information being the major culprit.

Sometimes you can get lucky with tobacco smoke, Bruce. I have had wartime, original pieces from time to time that cleaned up beautifully with mild soapy water. The pail of water and cloth were brown when done but the paint immaculate. Then you get the bits where the organic mix of compounds in the top coat varnish had a mind of their own over the years and heat, UV rays, and chemical interactions between all the varnish components, yellows the coating completely through. That is what I am going to be up against here with the Sender front panel. Lots of careful polishing ahead sooner or later. In the meantime, I am finally getting a good handle on the factory parts that never were varnished and would stay gloss Navy Grey their entire lives. A slow process as well, but finally starting to make sense of it all.

Best regards to all!

David

[David Dunlop]

With 24 hours of drying time now on the flat black paint, I was able to easily slide off the initial paper guards from all three sets of flags. They can now finish setting up their curing for the week.

I have to give the application of the luminous Natural Green paint some thought now. This needs to be done by hand with small artists brushes. The paint has to be shaken well before and while using. I am not sure how thick it is to apply, nor how long it takes to dry between coats.

The tricky bit to master is getting each coast evenly and smoothly applied. My thought process is that thicker brush lines might just glow more brightly than thinner sections due to more phosphors being present. That might result in visible brush lines in the paint when it is in 'luminous mode'.

I am going to practise a bit with small squares to get a feel of just how best to work with this paint. I may even resort to doing the painting under black lamp conditions in order to more readily detect brush strokes as I proceed.

I will keep you posted.

David

[David Dunlop]

The last couple of days have been spent experimenting with a couple of Natural Green luminous paints, to see how easy they are to work with in a hand painting situation.

The two paints I have found locally are both acrylic and made by the same company, DECOART, in the USA. I found them in the local Michal’s craft store. It was an interesting and informative exercise.

First, the basics for each paint. In the two accompanying photographs, the DS102 paint is on the left and the DS50 on the right. The daylight and luminous colours of these two paints are identical and match the natural green luminous paint found on original wartime 19-Sets and the green on the panels of the 52-Set equipment. DS102 is the thicker of the two paints by far. It comes with a pen head cap intended to extrude a thin bead of paint, to give a dimensional effect on whatever project one might be working on. But it can be applied by brush readily. The DS50 is a true paint. It must be well shaken before using and if whatever you are doing takes more than 15 to 20 minutes to apply paint to, you need to recap and re-shake, before continuing.

One thing that is absolutely essential when working with either paint is that you need to work with this paint under a UV, or Black Light, in the dark. It is the only way to see how well, or poorly, the phosphors are being distributed on the surface you are working on.

The other interesting thing for both paints. I started with the crisp white satin, white paint as the base for both paints. The very first coat of either luminous paint changes the crisp white to a soft cream colour. This phenomenon was exactly what I had seen with the tone of the surviving white paint on the Flick Indicator Flags on 19-Set and my 52-Set. There may very well be some normal discolouration of the wartime flat white paint over the years, but the bulk of the colour change would appear to be the addition of the luminous paint.

I started with the DS50 paint first. It is a challenge! As soon as you apply any pressure to the brush, or move it across the surface you are painting, the phosphors squeeze out of the way. You end up with the main surface area with next to no phosphors and a thin line of them around the perimeter. To a point, this was good news.

When I first removed the front panel from the Sender and saw the six Flick Indicator Flags, I got out my UV Light to see if there was any glow left on the flags. The only thing visible was a thin green line around the two side edges, and a slightly thicker one at the top. My experience with this paint now tells me that during the 202 Workshop rebuild in the 1960’s these flags were indeed repainted and whoever did it started at the lower; black edge – which was probably masked off – and moved the brush up to the top of the flags were the metal folds back along the top.

It took four coats of this paint to get enough infill in the centre of the test square for a green glow to be noticeable, but brush lines were very much in evidence. Three more coats finally started to tone down the brush strokes and make the luminous green paint ‘pop’. That information told me the workshop repaint was very likely one or two coats at most, and very likely done in normal workshop lighting.

The DS102 paint was very much a paste and applied rather easily. There was no spreading of the phosphors away from the brush and in the attached photos; only three coats were needed to reach the same level of coverage as the thinner DS50.

I had initially hoped the nice crisp satin white paint was what the finished result would be, but now having worked with this paint and seeing how it matches wartime original looks, I am quite pleased.

David