Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

Up until now, the main focus as far as phosphor luminous paint went for the 52-Set project, has been the Neutral Green colour as used with all the information decals of the set.

Where it starts to get interesting with the 52-Set is with the Receiver and Sender dials and their related markings, along with the Handles No. 72. On the latter, the white lines for the Blue Frequency are Neutral Blue Luminous Paint and the white lines for the Red Frequency are Neutral Red Luminous Paint. Added to this are the Neutral Orange, Yellow, Green and Reds used on the tuning dials and related decals. It gets very colourful. Very quickly. A number of these dials were manufactured post war and are non-luminous, and the panels are usually marked as such with a white decal at the time of rebuild. And that is OK. Part of the sets history. But where they should glow, they should.

The challenge is finding phosphor luminous paints in the required colours in small enough quantities. One such company I found in the USA is ART ‘N GLOW with their website being: www.artnglow.com

They have the required Neutral Blue, Orange and Red available in stock. The tricky colour, it turns out, is the Neutral Yellow. The proper phosphors for it are apparently hard to come by. They advised I keep checking their site for availability and ordering when in stock.

The attached photo is slightly overexposed, but gives a good idea of what the blue, orange and red look like.

I will probably start this phase of restoration by refinishing a couple of the Handles No. 72. Both were coated in varnish for some strange reason and one is also badly chipped along the edges. They will get redone, original factory Gloss Navy Grey, with the red and blue indicator dots and correct Neutral coloured lines to match the rest of the Handles No. 72 on the set.

David