Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

Much too cloudy and overcast today, so I only got about another inch lower in the cleaning process on the right hand side of the Sender panel, before my eyes went into full Autorotation Mode.

David

[David Dunlop]

I picked up this brute today, the 2nd CPP-2 Power Supply I will need to fully check out the 52-Set.

Many thanks to Brian Asbury, who still has these supplies in stock, and to the MLU Shipping Team of Rob Love and Derk Derin, for getting it to Winnipeg and warehousing it, until I could pick it up.


David

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

I picked up this brute today, the 2nd CPP-2 Power Supply I will need to fully check out the 52-Set.

Many thanks to Brian Asbury, who still has these supplies in stock, and to the MLU Shipping Team of Rob Love and Derk Derin, for getting it to Winnipeg and warehousing it, until I could pick it up.


David

A later one with the 12/24V access door....nice. Now just find a source for the mains fuse.

[David Dunlop]

I was able to even out the cleaning a bit today, and with this little bit done with, a quick calculation gives me about 59.65 % of the panel cleaning for the Sender has now been completed.

That finally includes the five riveted STOPS for the three dials, which are a real pain to clean around effectively, and it also gets the upper riveted mounting post for the clear acrylic POINTER located on the right side of the FREQUENCY dial. Just the lower riveted mounting post to deal with now and after that, nice flat panel to work on.

This point in the cleaning also leaves 14 of the 30 decals now cleaned around, so nearly half way through that part of the task as well.

I am going to have to get another tube of polish this weekend. The thick coat of varnish on this Sender panel is really eating through the tube I purchased at the start of this project. By comparison, when I cleaned about 10 19-Set panels back in the 1980's, I still had nearly a third of a tube left.

David

[Wayne Hingley]

I admire your patience and attention to detail David! Great work. Do you plan to reapply some type of clear coat in the end, or leave it as-is with the polished surface?

[rob love]

New rule for the MLU express: No CPP-2s. F-n things are heavy.

Otherwise, happy to have helped out.

[David Dunlop]

Cloudy with showers this morning in the ‘Peg, so no polishing getting done today. I do have a few errands to take care of, however, one of which is picking up another tube of polish to see me through the rest of this project. I will probably also get a chance to do some work on the new CPP-2 a little sooner than I expected.

Thank you for your kind words, Wayne. Very much appreciated. Once all the discoloured varnish has been polished back, I will be leaving the front panel alone, other than the required touching up of missing paint. I know there are a number of modern clear coats available for protecting and relaxing the decals available for modeling etc., and they work very well. The big unknown for me, however, is I have no clue what these 75+ year old water transfer decals are made of, as compared to today’s products. I am just not prepared to risk them. It will be a different matter when I get to the Supply Unit restoration. I will be taking it right back to the metal and essentially starting over because the 1966 rebuild decals are the wrong colour, font size and poorly applied. This is in addition to the lower inch of the panel having been bent inwards just enough to pop the paint off along that section, which puts the quality of the rebuild priming into question. Since those decals will be modern materials, I will use a modern flattener/top coat on them.

I am a bit of an odd duck when it comes to this restoration I fear. Whenever I am looking at this wireless set, or handling it for that matter, I cannot help to wonder about all the hands it passed through at the Canadian Marconi Company plant in Montreal. From the people punching out all the raw metal parts, shaping, welding, riveting, painting and all the many assembly points until it was tested and packed for shipping.

Probably mostly women with some older men sprinkled into the mix, but all brought together to build something as their contribution towards the war effort. Did they ever wonder who would end up using these sets they were making? Would a particular set they were working on be one to handle special, or important communications? My mind just doesn’t stop with this really. The decals on this Sender really get to me sometimes. They are the originals. Somebody was actually handling and looking at them the moment they were applied. Checking everything was just right and moving the panel on to the next station. And now, here I am doing exactly the same thing. In their wildest dreams, I am sure none of the CMC workers who moved this particular wireless set down the assembly line ever dreamed that in 2020 it would still be around.

I cannot wait to finally get this set up and running on the air again. I really want to hear what it sounds like. Warts and all. We read all the time about the problems and limitations of wartime signals equipment. Just another factor that impresses the hell out me regarding the determination of the wartime generation. They worked through all of that and got the job done! So if reading about what they achieved is impressive, I most certainly want to experience the same conditions of operation of this equipment as they experienced. That enables me to more fully appreciate their accomplishments. For me, that experience is an important link to our past generations and would be completely lost if I were to gussy this set up with all sorts of modern improvements that turned it into a ‘much better set’. If I want a much better set, I can buy one at any of a dozen shops in town. But I will miss the experience.

Sorry, That was a borderline rant, I think.

David

[David Dunlop]

With a little free time available today, I removed the top cover of the newly acquired CPP-2 and gave it an inspection and cleaning. I also removed the wooden tray assembly that had been fitted to it. It was probably that extra five pounds that did Rob in.

Just the usual decades of dust accumulations and when it was all said and done, I fired it up and it works perfectly.

I forgot to take note of the two serial numbers on these CPP-2's and will do that eventually. As Bruce mentioned a couple of posts back, these are both late production items with the small hatch on the left front of the cover that makes changing the output voltage so much easier.

One difference I noticed straight away was in the power cords. Both are the same long length with the same plug, but the first one I bought has a flexible rubber sheathed 16/3 conductor fitted. The new CPP-2 has a flat PVC sleeved 16/3 conductor which has three age cracks in it that have been taped over. I will eventually switch this one over to the flexible rubber cable and use the time for that conversion to take a closer look underneath the chassis at the rest of the wiring.

The photo shows the two supplies together on the lower shelf of my wireless table. Just the one supply is actually connected to my DC Voltage Distribution System for the wireless equipment on the top shelf.

David

[David Dunlop]

Another bright sunny morning so another good polishing day.

The last little fiddly bit has now been cleaned around so pretty much straight forward polishing around decals remaining.

At some point in the history of this Sender, somebody grabbed the central HANDLES of the I.P.A. 7-16 MC Dial, with the palm of the hand pressed hard against the dial plate and gave it a hard turn. The result was the Stop Pin on the back side of the innermost Tuning Plate was dug into the panel paint, leaving a noticable semicircle gouge in the paint. this was hidden until the disassembly process, but can be seen in any of the earlier Sender panel photos in this thread.I was able to successfully polish out about 75% of that gouge.

We may be in for another rain day tomorrow, but if that is the case, there is always something else with this project that can be worked on. We will see how it goes.

David

[James D Teel II]

The color difference between the clean/unclean section is amazing! Keep it up. Like I’ve told you before, I enjoy following this restoration.

[David Dunlop]

Thank you for your comments, James.

As predicted, today has been a major rain and thunderstorm day, so no polishing, to which my fingers are eternally grateful!

Before the rains arrived, however, I did accomplish some good errands. I picked up another 75 ml tube of polish and found it is now pushing $18.00 Cdn a tube now, but still well worth it.

I also dropped into the local RONA and bought an 11 foot length of rubber sheathed 16/3 power cord to replace the one on the new CPP-2. when I feel up to moving it again.

The other thing I did was take a look at some modern electrical components I thought would be suitable replacements for fittings needed to eventually replicate the AERIALS, Horizontal, 4-Section used with the Wireless Set No. 52.

The 14 gauge 7/22 Hard Drawn stranded copper aerial wire is still readily available in the United States, but seems to have disappeared out of the usual Amateur Radio markets here in Canada. I am not about to order any at the moment though. I realized I now have 13 parcels sitting at my local US Border Mail Depot I cannot retrieve because the border is still closed. No need to be adding to that right now.

Geoff Turcott sent me a couple of detail photos of his 52-Set aerial and it looked like some modern items would be good fits.

The two attached photos from Geoff show the Section quick connect/disconnect fittings, and the splice fitting between the end of the aerial and the Feeder Cable to the Set.

The third photo shows the modern substitutes I found, They are all MARR 14 gauge crimp connectors. The photo shows the packaging, the fitting with blue insulation attached and with the insulation peeled off. The Male/Female Bullets will work nicely for the Section Connections and the Butt Splice Connector for the Aerial to Feeder Splice. I will crimp them all as well as solder the fittings, when I get to that part of the project.

One other fitting to look into locally and that part of the project should be good to go.

David

[David Dunlop]

Beautiful and sunny this morning so another bit of polishing has been accomplished. Nice to be this close to the finish of this portion of the project. Just over 75% done now and 21 of the decals are 'popping' like they used to on the panel.

My brain is telling me to get some more polishing done today since rain is supposed to return for the rest of the week. We shall see how that idea goes and if I get more done, I will update the progress later today.

David

[David Dunlop]

I ended up taking advantage of the sunshine today and getting a bit more Sender panel polished. I can now finally say the polishing process has reached all four edges of the panel.

David

[Chris Suslowicz]

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

...

The other thing I did was take a look at some modern electrical components I thought would be suitable replacements for fittings needed to eventually replicate the AERIALS, Horizontal, 4-Section used with the Wireless Set No. 52.

The 14 gauge 7/22 Hard Drawn stranded copper aerial wire is still readily available in the United States, but seems to have disappeared out of the usual Amateur Radio markets here in Canada. I am not about to order any at the moment though. I realized I now have 13 parcels sitting at my local US Border Mail Depot I cannot retrieve because the border is still closed. No need to be adding to that right now.

Geoff Turcott sent me a couple of detail photos of his 52-Set aerial and it looked like some modern items would be good fits.

The two attached photos from Geoff show the Section quick connect/disconnect fittings, and the splice fitting between the end of the aerial and the Feeder Cable to the Set.

The third photo shows the modern substitutes I found, They are all MARR 14 gauge crimp connectors. The photo shows the packaging, the fitting with blue insulation attached and with the insulation peeled off. The Male/Female Bullets will work nicely for the Section Connections and the Butt Splice Connector for the Aerial to Feeder Splice. I will crimp them all as well as solder the fittings, when I get to that part of the project.

One other fitting to look into locally and that part of the project should be good to go.

David

Do you need the wire clips for the chain-link insulators? I think I have some insulators with them fitted in the "bits box"...

I'll also see if I can get decent photographs (and measurements) of the multi-section WS19 aerial I've got (6 sections + two insulator strings) which I think was an early attempt at replacing the Truck & Ground station set of 6 wire aerials. (Except that the manufacturer Got It Wrong and the first section is 10 feet too long....)

Best regards,
Chris.

[David Dunlop]

Hi Chris.

If you mean the 1/2 to 3/4-inch, copper, double barrel, wire crimp clips securing the aerial wire around the insulator links, they are apparently still in use in Tackle Shops for securing fishing line. Go figure! Will be looking into their availability locally. On line at the moment shows just 100+ bags of them listed, which is a bit of overkill for this project.

If you mean the heavy, chain link fence type wire, oval split ring clips used to secure the ends of the aerial assembly to the top plates of the masts, I can indeed use a pair of those. That looks like a form of clip which has gone completely obsolete these days.

David

[Chris Suslowicz]

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

Hi Chris.

If you mean the heavy, chain link fence type wire, oval split ring clips used to secure the ends of the aerial assembly to the top plates of the masts, I can indeed use a pair of those. That looks like a form of clip which has gone completely obsolete these days.

David

Yes, the insulator to mast plate split rings.

I'm fairly sure I've got spares (fitted to 3-link insulators).

They have been known to be brittle in the past - I had one shatter when I tried to open it up far enough to fit to a mast plate, and the break was crystalline.

I'll drop a couple into the box.

Cheers,

Chris.
(That WS52 panel is looking wonderful, by the way.)

[David Dunlop]

Thank you Chris for the comments and aerial bits. All are very much appreciated!

I was able to get one more section polished back this morning. Timed it well, as the overcast is just now starting to roll in for the day. I think two more good polishing mornings should do it for this piece of the project. Then I can concentrate on touch up paint needed for the panel.

David

[David Dunlop]

Finally, after 18 days of polishing, the Sender panel of this 52-Set, once again has a consistent, close to original, coat of Gloss Navy Grey visible on it.

Only fitting I compare this to a photo of what I started out with on the first day of this task.

It got a little dicy in the last 45 minutes of todays session when the clouds started rolling in and out, but its done now.

Next step will be to pick up a can of grey oxide primer and get ready for the paint touch up work.

David

[David Dunlop]

There has been a bit of a gap here, but things are back on track now.

I was having a very hard time finding my 'go to' KRYLON Flat Grey Primer anywhere in town. All the usual places were either turning up as, out of stock, discontinued, or both. a check of the KRYLON Canada site gave no real clues as to why, but did seem a lot thinner on product choices than its American counterpart now for some reason.

When I switched to my second choice, TREMCLAD Flat Grey Primer, it was just out of stock in all the usual places. I did, however, find four cans still in stock at the RONA in Portage la Prairie, on Sunday, so bought two on line and drove out this morning to pick them up. I now just have to pick up a bottle of alcohol from the corner pharmacy to use to wipe the polish off the bare metal bits on the Sender Front panel, and the slow process of paint touch up can begin.

Hopefully, tomorrow.

David

[David Dunlop]

Well, I have finally started the phase of this project I dislike the most: touch up painting. I have cleaned the polish residue from the bare metal chipped bits with alcohol and applied a coat of flat, grey primer by hand to said areas.

The first photo is right after the alcohol cleaning and frankly looks no different than the last photo I posted. The second photo, however, shows the bits of bare metal now covered in a coat of the required primer. I will let that sit and cure until early next week, before attempting the fun stuff.

Going to be interesting to see how close a colour match I get to the original Gloss Navy Grey, how close a match there is to the original gloss, and how steady my hand it throughout the process. I have never been good at this sort of detail work, so it should be interesting.

David

[David Dunlop]

I have been off this thread for a couple of days nearly, waiting for some paint to dry and my head to clear of things 52 for a while.

I found a small piece of plastic in the shop last week and primed it and painted a strip of the Gloss Navy Grey across one end of it. This was the colour match I had done to the Access Door Assembly off the Sender panel a few weeks ago. It has been a while since I worked with enamel-based pants and I had quite forgotten the drying times required for them. This particular one requires 16 hours between coats. That timed out to 04:00 local time this morning but at Noon today it is still definitely off gassing and feels soft to the touch. I am thinking a good two weeks to cure hard would not be unreasonable at room temperatures.

In the two photos I have attached today, I have placed the test strip on the plastic between the Access Door Assembly and the Sender front panel in the daylight in the back garden. It would be extremely helpful if you could take a look at the photos and provide me feedback on how good a match this paint is to the wartime originals in you opinions.

I will fill you in later on why I am making this request, to reduce any biases in opinions.

Thanks in advance,

David

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

Hey David, I have some good news and some bad news. The bad is that paint matching is a mugs game. Change the light and what you thought was a match isn't. Varnish and what was a perfect match reacts and no longer is. Then, even if you match perfectly, the old and new finishes will weather differently anyway.

Oh, right, the good news. Our eyes aren't getting any younger so we won't notice!!

[Chris Suslowicz]

Hi David, I was about to make a complete fool of myself by saying it was much too light and matched the primer more than the finish colour - then I noticed the outline between the top of the door and the main panel...

It looks like a _very_ close match to me.

Best regards,
Chris.

[David Dunlop]

Thanks for your responses, Gentlemen. Much appreciated.

I was curious what an impartial, uninvested eye saw when looking at these images.

We seem to be living in a world today that has become very ‘Flat Biased’ when it comes to paint finishes. They can hide a lot of mistakes and sloppy workmanship, unlike their glossy cousins, and I cannot, for the life of me recall when, if ever before, I have ever purchased a glossy paint, or even had one matched.

The flat Olive Green I had matched a year ago for the three wood equipment boxes for the 52-Set was spot on perfect and I have never had issues before with colour matched paints from our local RONA Store. This Gloss Navy Grey has been a whole different ball game.

For the boxes, the new paint was going to be needed on the replacement interior partition, where if it was off by any amount, it would be hidden. When it came time to tidy up the exteriors of the three boxes, they would all be entirely repainted and new stencils applied, so they would all match. Again, no big deal if the colour match was off a bit.

This Gloss, Navy Grey on the other hand is primarily a touch up on the Sender front panel and will be used for an entire redo of the Supply Unit front panel when the time comes. If it was off a little bit with the Supply Unit, it would be standing on its own and any variation would be sitting away from the other three components of the main 52-Set, so not a real problem. As a Sender touch up paint, my mind has steadily blown this up into a very big problem. The last thing I want is a mismatch significant enough the repair work looks like the first lesson at a One Eyed Clown Painting Class.

When the paint was first matched, I thought it was a very good match at the store, factoring in wet paint always has a slightly different tone to it than when it dries. To be absolutely certain before I started the touch up work, I prepared the small sample plate I posted about last. When I put the three pieces together to test out the match, what I found was that the initial glance at the three pieces together looked spot on perfect regarding the actual colours, the sample plate was very hard to spot. When my eyes did finally find and focus on it, a very odd thing started to happen. As I stared at it, it became much more noticeable and actually took on a very distinctive green grey colouration. If I blinked, or glanced away and back again for a moment, the sample disappeared and then re-emerged and quickly took on the green grey appearance once more. I began to strongly suspect my mind was so worried about the possibility of a serious mismatch; it was actually creating one to satisfy the pre-existing condition I had created in my head.

So that is why I turned it over to the MLU experts for their opinion. Chris’ reaction was identical to my initial one, as was my lovely wife’s after I dragged her into the survey as well. Bruce identified a key issue with the paint as well.

I am now quite comfortable in regards to the actual colour; this is a very good match to the original Navy Grey. It most definitely, however, is different from the original Navy Grey regarding the gloss. This modern paint base has a lot more gloss to it than the original 75 year old paint does when I compare the two in daylight or indoors. The increased gloss reflects more light than the original paint and that has the effect of lightening or darkening the colour tone of the paint, more than the original. It is possible, when moving the two pieces around, side by side in the light, to easily reach a sweet spot in the reflections where the colour tones of the two paints suddenly match. So.

What I think I am going to do is let the paint sample continue to cure for a while longer and then mask off half of it. I will then polish the other half and compare the two sections. I am thinking the polishing process with the same polish I used to clean the panel with, should cut back the gloss enough to solve the problem. I have lots of other things to deal with for the Project in the meantime.

So thanks again for the feedback, as it was very helpful.

David

[Jordan Baker]

I’ve found Tremclad Gloss light machine grey is a very close match. I’ve used it on some pieces and was quite happy with it.

https://www.rustoleum.ca/product-cat...Machine%20Gray

[Chris Suslowicz]

Surface finish makes one Hell of a difference to the apparent colour. The classic example being BS381C 499 Service Brown which apparently originated as SCC (Standard Camouflage Colour) No.2 but as applied today as a gloss finish on (metal) ammunition boxes looks far too dark.

It's visually much lighter on (rough) wooden boxes, or in a matt finish (which you will have great difficulty in buying these days). Matting agent added before spraying is the usual answer to that problem.

If anyone is worried about the final appearance of an original radio, I can only point to the WS52 currently on eBay UK with a starting price of 2995 GBP.

(Interesting definition of "presentable", also "complete" since all the cables and the ATU appear to be missing, along with some screws, and there are no internal photographs.)

Chris.

[David Dunlop]

Wow Chris.

Interesting how complete sets keep turning up. This makes it three I am aware of in the past three years: two in Canada, and now this one in the UK.

It is quite a colour palette, indeed, and you are right, a close look indicates a lot of small pieces are missing, broken or been switched out for none original parts.

What I do wonder about, as you mentioned, are the internals. Notice the four studs on the top central portion of the Carriers No. 4. Was a British Auxilliary Supply Unit fitted to the 52-Set at one time? Not knowing how this conversion was done, and in spite of how hard original Supply Units and Senders are to find these days, the price point seems too high without more knowledge of what has gone on inside the chassis of all three main components.

On the plus side, it looks like it might be a great example of a British Modified Set with regards to the change over from luminous decals to printed markings.

David

[David Dunlop]

Chris.

I did a Serial Number compare earlier this evening and it turns out this particular Receiver was trailing down the Assembly Line in 1944 just 25 units behind mine. Pretty close in the overall scheme of things.

Jordan.

Funny you should mention that paint. I picked up a can of it a couple of years back when I finally had my three receivers all together here. I had noticed some things with the appearance of the receiver panels that jogged my memory of identical things going on 30 years ago with my accumulation of 19-Sets. I better get off my ass now and document it all for posting here.

David

[David Dunlop]

Another long pause in actual work on the 52-Set, while I think things through.

I have tested a couple of polishing options on the sample strip of Gloss Navy Grey paint I had matched to the Sender front panel. Both succeeded in reducing the gloss of the paint, but only by changing the finish look from gloss to semi-gloss, which REALLY makes the new paint stick out like a sore thumb. Polishing the semi-gloss result to shine it up a bit, merely returns it to its original gloss appearance. So, I have decided that since probably 70% of the touched up areas will actually be hidden with hardware or parts being refitted to the Sender front panel, I am going to leave the new paint touch-ups as is when completed.

It should also be OK when the new paint is used to completely refinish the front panel of the Supply Unit. Decals and fittings on that panel will also cover a lot of the panel and the Receiver Supply Section panel will be a slightly different shade of grey in any event, so it should all be good.

In the meantime, I am making arrangements now to get 14 small parcels of parts and tools for the project brought across the Border, hopefully in the next week or so. Need for these bits is rapidly approaching.

David

[David Dunlop]

I received an email early this morning from Jordan Baker regarding a Case Spares for the 52-Set that had just turned up on the UK eBay site. I am not in need of one, having two already, but this one was interesting because of its nicely preserved stencil markings. These are completely gone on one of my boxes and the other has only fragments surviving.

Sadly, the KimPak Lining and interior partition have been removed from this box, but as noted, the ¾-inch high by ½-inch wide, 1/8-inch thick characters of the stencil are very nice to find and patterning a stencil from this photo should be relatively easy, down the road.

The other interesting feature is the C-Broad Arrow marks on this box. They are somewhat larger than I had expected, and in black. Good to know. The funny thing about these stamps on this particular box is the sheer number of them. Somebody must have been having a very boring day in the Acceptance Room when this box arrived. Note there are two partial stamps on the front of the box, outboard of the lower part of the latch. And then on the lid, there is another pair of complete stamps, roughly midway between the handle plates and the outer edge of the lid.


David