Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

Once I had the Supply Unit Decals sorted out, I set up a third sheet on the database to work on the two decals for the front panel of the Coils, Aerial Tuning No. 2A. This went rather smoothly now that the bugs in the process had all been dealt with during the Supply Unit work.


So both pieces for my 52-Set will eventually get more correct looking decals on their panels.


David

[David Dunlop]

Actual, physical work on the 52-Set has been limited recently. I have spent most of my 52-Set time planning what needs to be done when I start work on the Supply Unit, making sure I have all the tools I need on hand before I start.

I am normally quite comfortable with disassembling a piece of wireless equipment on the bench and hunting down faults for repair, but I have come to realize with this 52-set Project that a huge portion of that comfort comes from knowing in the back of my mind that replacement parts for what I am working on are relatively common and easy to find. That concept held very true right up to working on the restoration of the two Receivers for the 52-set. With patience, original parts for the Receiver are easy to track down. the receivers are common. My level of concern shot up dramatically when I was working on the Sender, which also carried over to the Supply Unit. The Vibrator Supply Section of the Supply Unit that feeds the receiver is pretty basic electronics and quite similar to the remote Supply in design. The Sender Supply section, with its two big Robbins & Myers Rotary Transformers, drives the whole concern level back up to new heights. I am fortunate that testing to date indicated both sections of the Supply Unit are in pretty good working order and current indications suggest some careful inspection and cleaning of the Sender Supply Section will be enough to keep it happy for another 80 years, The Vibrator Supply for the receiver has a faulty component bleeding off 1.7 Volts DC somewhere, with a resulting proportional drop in the HT1 and HT2 Outputs for the Sender, so should not be too difficult to isolate and repair. The rest will just be physical repairs and replacements, but the shorter I can make the bench time, the happier I will be.

I recently obtained a new grease gun and mechanics stethoscope. I tossed my old grease gun some years after I stepped away from MV restorations. It was last loaded with Sodium grease that had badly broken down to a leaky oil and tossing was easier than cleaning at the time, as I had no real use for it.

The stethoscope was an odd purchase case years ago, but proved itself several times in finding the locations of sticky valves, tappets and blown cylinder head gaskets. I have no idea what happened to my original, but it likely got lost in one of several moves in my life. I have another high tech tool on order and currently in transit and have my eye on one more to get, when the price is right. With them all in hand, and with a couple of cartridges of grease yet to purchase, I should be good to go with restoring the 52-Set Supply Unit finally.


David

[Bob Carriere]

......... and I can hardly find the parasitic drop in my CMP....... what patience you have........

Looking forward to your next chapter...... Sherlock and the elusive volts!!!!!

Bob C.

[David Dunlop]

A new addition to my 52-Set Project tools arrived last week, a Cricut Maker cutting system.

This particular model now has 2 and 3 upgrades but the original Maker is still the powerhouse worker. The problem was, here in Canada, this product currently runs over $600 Cdn after taxes. Several years back, I had chatted with Tony Baker on his 1/4-Pounder Thread about the merits of this type of equipment in our restoration hobbies for stencil and letter cutting, but the price always kept it on the back burner.

In order to replicate the original front panel decals, and more importantly, get them in the correct spots on the Supply Unit, I will have to cut a very precise stencil. Not something I am keen on tackling by hand and eye alone anymore. This Maker accepts Vector graphic software instructions, along with several others, so getting a drawing up to the correct size is easily doable, once you master the machine and programming.

I was trolling the Cricut Canada website a couple of weeks ago and was stunned to discover Cricut finally adopted the Apple approach to selling stock returned on either consignment, or from shuttered 3rd Party Vendors. Like Apple and Lego, Cricut has iron control over their products. Nothing ever goes on sale or gets cleared out without their approval, so they get a lot of returned goods back at their warehouses where they are opened up, reinspected and repacked in ‘White Box’ packaging. And they are then resold with full warranty at impressive discounts. This Maker, by comparison to its actual book value price was available all in, with taxes and free delivery, for $257.60 Cdn.

Let the Learning Curve begin!



David

[David Dunlop]

Back on December 23rd in Post #1055, I showed the final printout for the replacement Contents List I had to replicate for my Spare Parts Case. The next step at that point was to add a coat of varnish or lacquer to it to match the appearance of the list in my Remote Receiver Case and a friends Spare Case in Edmonton. There cases seem to be the only ones with this type of treatment. All four Tool Boxes I have seen are all clearly plain paper Content List labels.

The finish on these Lists is definitely not a high gloss and of the Matte and Satin clear spray lacquers I had on hand, the satin gave the closest look to the originals I had seen. So yesterday I did the spraying on a couple just in case I botched one.

Today I did a rough trim down and will do the final trim in a week or so, once the stench of the spay has died down a bit more.

These lists were originally glued to the insides of the various boxes and cases with good old mucilage glue, which LePages and the other glue makers stopped making a few years ago. On the bright side, yellow carpenters glue dries with a similar colour to the old mucilage which always seems to have oozed out from under the lists when they were glued in place, so I should get a similar effect using the yellow glue as a replacement. Somehow, however, getting sloppy with the glue application goes against the grain with me a bit.


David

[Wayne Hingley]

Nice looking results David. Well done.

[David Dunlop]

It is great when Time is your friend.


After applying the spray lacquer to the Contents Lists for the Spare Parts Case, I had set them aside to fully dry and finally got a chance this morning to get out and pick up a bottle of Yellow Carpenters Glue to mount the lists to the inner lids of the Spare Parts Cases. When I took the glue to my work bench, I glanced at the lists and was stunned at what I saw. All traces of the Sepia Tone in the paper had been bleached out by the lacquer. They were now a very tired looking grey colour. Not acceptable at all.

I had used the Krylon spray lacquer of the two I had available and clearly, one or more of the compounds in its composition did not like the dyes in laser printer toner that was not black.

Fortunately, the other clear spray lacquer I have is a Rust-Oleum product and a careful comparison of the two cans revealed it has a completely different makeup to the Krylon product. So, I have now printed out a new set of Contents Lists onto a tan coloured paper and I shall apply the Rust-Oleum to these later this week and monitor what happens with it as it cures.



David