Wireless Truck Furniture

[David Dunlop]

Bob. I agree a copper bar would be pricey, but possibly doable. Be interesting to cost out what a correct sized piece would be with the appropriate bends in it. The rest is just hole drilling to locate the standoff insulators and the terminal posts. It was copper because of the low electrical resistance it offered. Brass might be just as expensive as copper, or perhaps more so. I personally would not go near aluminium to save my soul after all the negative feedback that surfaced from it's use in home wiring a few years back.

Get yourself a copy of "Wireless Set Canadian No. 19 INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS For TRUCK AND GROUND STATION". It was published by Philco in the USA in October 1944 for the Canadian Military and covers everything you need to know about setting up a Mk II or Mk III 19-Set in any of the 2Gx or 2Kx 15-cwt Wireless Trucks and the HUW. There was a flood of these NOS manuals hit the civvy market back in the 1980's and they still pop up from time to time at flea markets and such.

One thing I would suggest, with the interior plywood you have still in place is study the hell out of it! Photograph it all until you are ready to scream and measure where all the mounting screws went. It they are original and still there, they are easy to spot: slotted, curved head sheet metal screw about 1/2 to 3/4 inch long, surrounded by a small finishing washer. If you have a second wireless box handy with original plywood still in place you will discover something interesting. The mounting screws for each piece of plywood are all in exactly the same place on each piece. It took me a couple of full Saturdays exploring all the boxes at Princess years ago before that lightbulb went on. Wilson Truck Body was running a full blown assembly line building these boxes with all the related demands for efficient use of hardware and reliable consistency of product.

I suspect they took advantage of cabinet maker/custom millwork shops and their equipment to make the pieces of interior plywood. One of the first puzzles I had looking at the interiors was why there was a seam line around the walls at the midpoint half way up. Why didn't they just slap a four foot piece of plywood around the bottom and fill in the upper portion with a smaller strip? Then I noticed the consistent placement of the original hardware on the walls from box to box. Some years later, while working at a local window and door manufacturer, I learned about the amazing machines the millworks industry has available for mass manufacture of large pieces of wood, predrilled for hardware. Think IKEA RTA furniture today. These machines do have size limits for the wood they can handle and back in the 1940's the size limits probably dictated the size of plywood to be worked.

So basically, all the pieces of plywood for the insides of these boxes, and all the trim millwork that covered the plywood seams, would have been pre cut and predrilled, ready to be mounted inside the boxes at the appropriate point in the assembly line: speed, efficiency, consistency. I suspect a similar pre drilling process was used with the roof assemblies to ensure all the pieces that had to be mounted on it were in the same place over and over again before they were dropped down on the open box shells.

By the way, the trim strip millwork covering the plywood seams is still a standard item at Windsor Plywood and a few other woodworking supply shops around town in these parts.

Gotta scoot. There is a snowstorm underway I have to sit and watch.


Cheers


david

[David Dunlop]

Bruce.

I know the orientation you are referring to. In fact, the manual I mentioned for Bob to track down shows that very layout in one sketch, but there is a problem with the sketch. It does not show the big copper buss bar and the two armoured cable power lines that come off the side of the Gen Box and pass right through that location in the 2Kx boxes. Not at all sure how the 2Gx series of Wireless Boxes looked inside. Never seen one to be honest. The manual text does refer to mounting the Charging Board in that location but it reads rather generic. I do not recall ever seeing the brackets or a shadow of the board on any of the Princess boxes on the walls at that location, however I do have access to two boxes locally I might be able to get to this winter to check out and report back.

Anyone got dimensions for the Charging Board No.5 I can reference when I take a boo?


David

[Robert Bergeron]

Friends,

Look at this picture closely.

There is a switch for internal lighting on the upper right.

If it was meant for slogging the chorehorses , batteries and No 19 set out in the woods then why would they need ''internal lighting '' ?

This was meant for the inside of the box of a version of Wireless truck for sure.

Robert

[nicholas dunford]

Robert
my Bedford MWR has the same charging panel (a British version) and has the same connections for internal lighting which are not used for the interior light in the rear of the truck it has its own rheostat controlled switch located under the wireless table which is supplied from the trucks battery ,could the interior light function on the switch panel be to provide a lighting function when working away from the truck ,i know that WFW shows the charging panel as used to control the power output either from the chore horse generator or the vehicle charging system but the charging panel looks to be of too lighter construction being very breakable and with the exposed wiring on the rear to be dragged into some muddy hole to work as a remote base station .
Nicky

[David Dunlop]

Nicholas.

You are very much on the right track. The Charging Boards were a multifunctional item, meant to fill in the gaps and shortcomings on many of the different wireless vehicles in service throughout the war, and at the same time, fill the need for properly float charging wireless batteries when a wireless set was being operated in a 'remote' location. I use quotes around the word remote because the term covers a broad spectrum of locations outside of the wireless truck.

Many wireless vehicles in service completely lacked a built in means of properly charging wireless batteries but may have had built in lighting systems. Many lacked even built in lighting and you would most definitely not get built in lighting if you were operating out of a tent in some 'remote' location. So the Charging Board was created.

Take the 2K1 and 2K2 15-cwt Wireless Boxes for example. They were the last of the line in the wartime 15-cwt series wireless boxes. By the time they came into production, all the mistakes and shortcomings of the earlier iterations of the 15-cwt wireless box had been taken into consideration. It had it's own interior lighting built in with auto blackout capability. It had a built in float charging system for the wireless batteries. To operate any of this equipment, the Charging Boards were totally, absolutely, positively, redundant. If the wireless equipment has to relocate from the truck to a 'remote' location, then the Charging Board comes into play.

As is written on page 45 of the Wireless Set No. 52 manual, when talking about the Charging Board, if it is found that the wireless vehicle in use is already fully equipped for lighting and charging batteries, the Charging Board is stored under the central part of the wireless table. If the wireless vehicle was an older model lacking in either proper battery charging capability and/or interior lighting, the Charging Board was mounted on the wall of the vehicle in a convenient location and became an active part of the working of that vehicle, only being removed if the equipment went 'remote'.

The factory wireless table from Wilson that was installed in the 2K1 and 2K2, wireless boxes came equipped with a deep drawer on the left side of the desk. The central and right side belly of the desk was bare. Yes. Absolutely. I have seen a handful of these desks over the years with a long shallow drawer installed under the central part of the desk. Not one of these drawers I have seen matched any of the others. They were all very likely field mods, built locally for whatever reasons.

Robert has suggested the Charging Board would be mounted under the rear right side window of the 2K1 and 2K2 Wireless Box. I have never seen signs of one being mounted there after close examination of over four dozen of these boxes. Consider the fact that in that location, two Enfield Rifles are stored along the side wall of the Generator Box for the Wireless Operation and Cypher Clerk. Not a practical place for the Charging Board to be placed with four horking great knobs sticking out from the front of it.


David

[Robert Bergeron]

Hello David,

Just a note to show where i temporarily installed the charging panel in my box.

Let's continue the research on this interesting subject because there are many that will benefit from the results.

Tell us more on the 2K2 version of the box. Never heard of it. Picture ?

I think i have the 2K1 version . My box is made of alumunium. 4 windows, one rear door. three ventilators , one powered two passive.

Cheers.

Robert

[Robert Bergeron]

Friends,

Here is a picture of the inside of my box before restoration.

In the center between the two windows we see the shadow of the metal control panel box . The wood panels were painted white around it.

At the right below the window i see the shadow of the c-5 charging panel that was there for a long while . The wood panel was painted white behind it but the light , air and humidity changed the colour behind the C-5 charging panel over the years.

At least , that is what i see.

Any other constructive opinions out there ?

[Robert Bergeron]

Giving life again to this tread as i am nearing completion of the inside of my radio box.

[David Dunlop]

Joe. That is an interesting photo. Thanks for posting it.

If you look closely, there are two sets of Mountings, Carriers No. 1 installed on that Wireless Table. The inner set are the active ones currently supporting the 19-Set and it's Carriers No. 23. The outermost set of Mountings are not in use, but must have been there to support an earlier Wireless Set installation.

The outer edges of the Carriers No. 23 are approx 37 inches apart. With a 1.5 inch width to the Mountings, the outer set must have been supporting a Wireless and related Carrier of about 40 inches in length. Does that match up with any other set we might know of being in use up to and around 1943? No. 9, 11 or 52 perhaps.

Also seems a bit odd if a set of Mounts were already in use on the Wireless Table, that they were not simply moved to accommodate the installation of the 19-Set. It doesn't make sense to keep both as the inner set for the 19 would interfere with installing the larger Carrier in the future.

I wonder if this was a test vehicle of some sort?

David