Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

Nice lineup on the ramp, Bruce.

I heard rumours a few years ago Testors was being, or had been, sold and the new owners wanted to go acrylic to be good corporate citizens but the plan back fired for some reason. There was a time their paints were hard to find but that seems to have passed. However, I do see a mix of stock on local shelves when I look closely at the way the labels are printed.

The big problem here is the old established model/hobby shops are rapidly disappearing. My ‘go to’ store for any large quantities of Testors these days is PM Hobbycraft in Calgary. They always seem to have stock, or restock very quickly, and they carry the Testors in several sizes. The 1/4 ounce jar is currently $3.99 Cdn as I recall.

Once you get your training fleet completed, Bruce, you will have to scale a replica BCATP airfield in your basement to display them.

David

[David Dunlop]

Hi James. You are right. The more I look at it, the more I like it.

The yellow capacitor at the lower left is a replacement at some point in the history of the 52-Set. All the original yellow lacquer had popped off the hardware on its cleat, save for on the very tip of the screw. I left that hardware as is.

David

[David Dunlop]

The two SEMS screws that fasten the front panel to the Vibratory Supply chassis have now been cleaned up. A couple of photos showing just the left one cleaned, and then both on them.

Everything is now ready to go for the reassembly of the Vibratory Supply next weekend.

The week will come in handy, as there are a number of options I have to consider regarding how best to proceed with work on the main Supply Unit assembly.


David

[David Dunlop]

A startling -47 degrees Wind Chill here this morning. It wasn’t just a couple of Sun Dogs surrounding the Sun today, it was a whole freaking wolf pack! A good morning to stay in and think, however.

There are a few things with the Supply Unit of this 52-Set that need to be looked at and fixed. The big one, eventually will be the removal of the front panel so it can be repaired, repainted and a new set of water slide transfer decals applied. This latter task will be huge, taking a while and requiring we get a new computer and the necessary software to do the job easily and well, as far as making the decals is concerned. So that huge task has to wait a bit yet.

My thought process is to first check the two Rotary Transformers to see if they are still working correctly. Having had a look at one set of end bearings on each of these items now I am comfortable the bearings are in good shape and will be OK for the duration of running time they will go through to get reliable output readings from them. This exercise will provide very useful information, both now and down the road when they are removed from the Supply Unit for repacking the bearings.

The second thing that came to mind was the hardware issue that is causing the Vibratory Supply Case to bind when being inserted or removed. This hardware is located on the left front corner of the AF Choke (L28A) in the MG1A Secondary Circuit where it is serving as the Smoothing Filter.

In the attached photo, you can see this Choke directly under the Blower Motor. The left side of the choke passed roughly half way between the right end on the Blower Motor capacitor and its cotton lacing and the errant hardware set is sitting pretty much under the front rim of the metal grommet on top of the Blower Motor where its two leads exit.

On the bright side, there is only one lead that needs to be unsoldered leading to the blower assembly. The rest is just hardware: four hex nuts to release the COVERS, Metal, from the front panel and then three large screw to release the Blower assembly, which should then just swing out the right side of the Supply Unit chassis. That should expose the AF Choke hardware that needs fixing and also allow me to clean the Blower Motor and more importantly its fan, which is filthy. And with that all done, I can reinstall the blower for the time being and more importantly, I can reinstall the restored Vibratory Supply assembly and keep it out of harms way.


David

[David Dunlop]

I had popped downstairs to check on how the paintwork was curing and found I needed to be within one foot of the two pieces now before detecting any further off gassing, so they will be ready for reassembly on the weekend. While checking, I also decided to make sure all the other parts were good to go and it was a good thing I did. I had not done anything yet with the two Shakeproof No. 18 Wing Head Cowl Fasteners.

I remembered the one survivor on the Sender was in very good condition and confirmed that with a quick look, which also reminded me these parts had a bright finish originally, along with their larger ‘Airloc’ cousins. The two I had to work with now only had a thin band of bright finish left along the ‘SHAKEPROOF INC’ stamp along one side of the wing. Everything else had worn away. Since all my electroplating to date (going way back to around Post #400) had been flat finish work, I went and reviewed Jordan Baker’s thread on his Otter restoration where he had done some plating and bright finish work on some electrical parts. A very helpful thread.

So for two days now I have replated and polished the two No. 18 Fasteners.

The first photo is the top fastener after plating and the polishing of the wing head started. With that much done, I then compared it to the survivor on the Sender, as per Photo 2. So far so good.

The third photo is the top fastener with polishing completed, and in the 4th photo I have compared its finished state with the original, ‘as acquired’ look of the bottom fastener.

Finally, in the last photo, both fasteners have been replated and polished.

Its interesting that the more you use your electroplating solution, the more loaded it becomes with the metal electrolytes you are working with and the faster the plating times become. When I first started this electroplating work, a good plating layer took one to two hours before metal whiskers’ would start to grow on the object being plated. Your metal anode plate also etched away at a pretty quick rate. This plating work only took 15 minutes per item before the whiskers arrived and the anode plate only had a slight discolouration along its edges that were in the plating solution.


David

[David Dunlop]

It was Reassembly Day today for the Vibratory Supply, which is always a nice point to reach in any project.

There was wee bit of a challenge in the very first step of fitting new cross pins to the two Shakeproof No. 18 Cowl Fasteners. I was able to seat them with the Cross Pin Setting Tool, but the resistance was too high when I tried getting then centered so I ended up having to tap them home with a small hammer. An interesting exercise I am glad is over.

Once the two cowl fasteners were reattached to the front panel, the next step was putting the panel back on the front of the Vibratory Supply. Since there is a significant overhang of the bottom of the panel, I set the Vibratory Supply up on a pair of small wooden blocks to clear the bottom of the panel from the surface of the bench. Then, after the Knobs, Metal was loosely fitted, I installed the two SEMS Screws, also to a loose fit. The three holes in the front panel for these pieces of hardware are slightly oversized. This allows one to ensure the bottom edge of the front panel is square to the surface the Vibratory Supply is resting on. In that way it will also be square to the front panel of the Supply Unit when reinstalled in it. This hardware was then given its yellow lacquer on the inside and the two Clips, Metal U-Shape for the drop cords were put back on. Again, there is just enough wiggle room with this hardware to allow one to ensure the outer edges of the clips are parallel to the outer edges of the front panel before carefully tightening them down. With this hardware given its yellow lacquer, another small bit of the project done.


David

[David Dunlop]

Just a refresher as to what this part of the 52-Set looked like initially.

Next step will be cleaning up the case the Vibratory Supply fits into. Not a huge project, but still needed.


David