Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

I have waited all winter to get my two power sanders out and get the Spare Parts Case worked on out in the garage, but the heat and humidity is still not cooperating today, so I dug out the trusty old hand sander and some 150 Grit paper, to keep the dust down and work in the basement.

I decided to pull the 8 metal corner guards this time around. This gave me larger surface areas to work with on the case lid, where I wanted to start this work and it also provided an opportunity to see if this would confirm when this hardware was fitted on the production line and also give me an opportunity to see if any makers marks of any kind for the guards might be found on the inner surfaces.

The corners of the case, under all eight guards, was bare wood, which confirmed the guards were fitted to the case around the same time as all the other metal hardware fittings that required wire riveting. No makers marks at all were found on any of the guards, anywhere. What was a surprise, however, was finding all eight corners had been hand trimmed by the points being cut back. Each corner was slightly different, with all of the cut edges being between 1/2-inch and 3/4-inch in length. Only one of the corners actually came very close to an equilateral triangle with each side close to the 1/2-inch mark.

The two longitudinal gaps in the lid are actually seams between the three panels making up the top board, the upper, wider one showed signs of the wood having curled up a bit along the edge of the middle board, but this sanded down easily. After the sanding and vacuuming, I did an initial putty fill of the wider gaps, holes and dents. The two larger holes at the lower side edges are where the original putty covering the countersunk screws securing the panel to the case had fallen away. These holes also had the wood chip out at the side so once this putty has hardened tomorrow, I can go back and build up the outer edges along the sides of the lid as needed before sanding back down to the proper profile. That sanding should also remove the last of the gloss from the paint, so hopefully the new paint can get a better grip.


David

[David Dunlop]

All the putty fill work and sanding are now done on the green Spare Parts Case I am restoring as part of the 52-Set Project. All the metal corner guards have also now been put back in place. The next step for it will be getting all the metal hardware primed. The first photo shows its present state. Note the remains of the large block of yellow/tan paint on the front of the case. This is where the runs on the inside lip of the case came from and it appears the application of this colour of paint was a military thing in the twilight years of operation for the 52-Set, and possibly other signals equipment. It was meant to cover over years of accumulated variations of ID stencils on the front of the item so a brand new ID Stencil could be applied in black paint using the new NATO stock number system and identification. If you look closely, you can still just see the first line of the original factory stencil from Canadian Marconi Company. It is centred between the lower section of the two latches and reads. ‘CASE SPARES’.

I was initially thinking of moving straight to the restoration of the last remaining wooden case I have for the Remote Receiver, just to get all three wooden boxes/cases done, but I have now decided to get the second, grey, Spare Parts Case ready for painting and finish the two of them off at once. The second photo is the grey case in its current condition. It has lost a lot of the putty fill in the screw holes on the bottom of it and has one huge swollen seam across the bottom of it from a good water soak at one point. I will be working with 80 to 120 grit sand paper with this case to get that seam filled and the wood trimmed down to a flat finish. The other two photos here give a pretty good indication of the damage to the Kimpak padding in the right side compartment. Clearly, valves were not stored here in its civilian life.


David

[David Dunlop]

While taking photos of the inside of the grey Spare Parts case, I noticed one of the staples for the Kimpak padding on the back wall of the right side compartment was visible where the padding had been torn away. It shows as a shiny bit in the first photo.

I carefully extracted it from the rear panel and straightened it out. In the second photo, it is sitting on a paper with 0.25-inch grid squares. The staple looks to be 1/4-inch but in fact is a tad narrower than that in all reality. I did just not want to risk breaking it by overworking it back to full true dimensions. It does, however, help document the materials used in the fabrication of these cases by Canadian Marconi Company.



David

[David Dunlop]

I feel like I have a mini Production Line going in the basement shop for 52-Set Cases, Spare Parts with two on the go now.

There were the usual civilian service paint blobs on the lips of the case and lid present on the grey case. Mostly grey, but a few yellow/tan showed up, which are probably late military in nature, in one front corner. These have now been sanded down and a new coats of Flat Olive Drab applied to these surfaces.

A closer look at the damaged Kimpak in the grey case seems to confirm there are a number of tears in this padding but no bits missing. I doubt I will ever find the correct stapling tools to reattach this padding but as an alternative, I am now looking at possible ways to carefully glue the various bits back in place down the road in the restoration process. I am still not sure if any oils were involved in the manufacture of the Kimpak padding, and that may influence how well glues might work in the long term.




David

[David Dunlop]

While carefully vacuuming out the dust from inside the grey Case, Spare parts last evening, something shiny caught my eye tucked in a bottom corner of the right side main compartment, hidden in the 3/4-inch gap below the side padding.

I fished it out with a pair of tweezers and it turned out to be a dirty, but working, Spare Bulb for the Pilot Lamps and Operators Lamps on the 52-Set. As far as I know, there was never a small tin issued for any of the spare bulbs in the 52-Set kit. they must have been individually wrapped in tissue paper when the Case Spares parts was stocked originally. The bulb has a blue Filament Insulator and I know these are colour coded. White is another common colour found in these small bulbs.



David

[David Dunlop]

I am still working away on sanding down the grey Spare Parts Case and getting it ready to repair holes and cracks in the exterior wood, prior to repainting.

It revealed another of its secrets last evening when I was working on the lid. A large white painted ‘R31’ came to light on the front edge of the lid, directly on top of the factory Flat Olive Green paint and right underneath a coat of NATO Green and what is likely the civilian grey paint. I seem to recall these sort of numbers were applied to Signals equipment, during Military Exercises here in Canada, to help the various units keep track of their stuff. I can now add this Cases, Spare Parts number to the red ‘R22’ that was on the front of the main set Sender and the yellow ‘J15’ that was on the Coil, Aerial Tuning Assembly I received from Bruce Parker.

This grey case has also revealed another mystery, or perhaps more correctly, has just added another piece to a mystery it first revealed back on Page 6 of this thread in Post #168.

At that time, I noticed the left hand Handle Bracket, factory riveted to the lid, was actually a right hand Handle Bracket, properly drilled to fit the holes in the lid. As assembled, the handle works correctly, but it was odd at the time, the correct part was not installed.

While cutting back more of the grey paint on the front of this case last evening, more of the factory original stencil became visible, to the point where is looked to be a larger stencil font than what was on my green Cases, Spare Parts and the tool box. Putting a tape measure up to the two spare parts cases this morning confirmed the stencil on the grey case is indeed 3/4-inch, whereas the green case and tool box are both 1/2-inch. Both stencils are five lines in height, with each line holding the same characters. The top of the first line of each stencil starts exactly one inch below the lip of the case and the first lines are both centred between the two latches. However, because of the larger font size on the grey case, the fifth and last line ends up one inch lower on the front of the grey case than the last line on the green case does.

So now I am wondering. The green Spare Parts Case probably came out of the normal wartime production run of the 52-Set. There is nothing unusual about it. As far as the grey one goes, however, could it have been assembled at the end of the production run, at or very near to the end of the contract for the 52-Set using whatever available parts were still on hand on the assembly line? Not an unusual thing at all with various CMP production lines at the end of the war.


David

[David Dunlop]

I got the last of the initial sanding completed this afternoon and discovered another bit of the Service History of this case, roughly dead centre on the front. A yellow 'R15' sitting on top of the NATO Green and under the grey paint. This case was found in the Edmonton area so likely was surplus through the Edmonton offices of Crown Assets. Not guaranteed by any means, but there is a good chance the Service Life for this case was with a Regiment somewhere in Western Canada. Too bad these three digit alphanumeric numbers cannot be traced back to specific Regiments.

New putty has also now been put back into the various countersunk screw holes on the lid of the case and a few cracks in the wood filled. as soon as this cures, I will flip the case over and fill the holes and larger gaps in the wood there.


David