Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

Hello Chris.

Thanks for the trip down Memory Lane. Somewhere, ages ago. I ran across that information and mentally misplaced it. My first thought was somebody colour blind had been mucking about. When I put the wiring to a continuity test, nothing useful was going anywhere, so I was quite pleased to pull it all out.

Most of the wires had been reworked from wherever they had originally been installed but a week of staring at the wiring photos I have on hand, and studying all the bumps and bends on the wires got all but one of them back in their original spots The last, shortest, black wire, I now have a strong hunch about but a little more thinking is needed.

In the attached photo, six of the wires have been put back on the two switch backs on the left, and two more are roughed in on the lower right switch back. The really short black wire still sits on the bench immediately left of the switchboard. The only things I know about it at the moment are which ends went on the switch and terminal post and the orientation of the end loops when in place.

I also spent two days disassembling the two larger, central terminal posts for the Wireless Set. The Positive one of them was a half inch too far forward on the front side and the back ends of both had been so heavily varnished the brass nuts were frozen. I had to take the front end apart to remove it and soak it in solent for a day to get the nuts loose enough to work them free. Wire brushed a bunch of goopy varnish off the studs and then worked the nuts back and forth along the stud for about 30 minutes with light oil to get them all back to normal. Then it was just a matter of reinstalling them to get 1.25 inches of stud showing on either side of the bakelite panel.

Incidentally, all this wiring is essentially 10-guage, silvered, solid copper wire with either a black, or red cotton sleeve, loosely slipped over the cut pieces. In the photos I have available, most of the switchboard wiring is this original stuff, but about one quarter of the wiring has been replaced with more modern red, or black, plastic loomed, 10-guage solid copper wire. So the missing pieces of wiring I have to make up replacements for, will look appropriate when done.


David