Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

Work on stripping the old paint accumulations from the metal hardware is steadily moving forward.

I now have the hardware stripped on the left and right ends and finished the back panel yesterday evening. Surprisingly, quite a bit of the factory original Flat Olive Green paint survived on the two hinge straps on the back panel. It will be interesting to see how much is still under the light green paint when I get around to sanding it.

Considering the current heat wave in the province at the moment, outdoor chores are in a bit of a standby mode, so I may just get the metal hardware on the bottom panel and front of the case done this week.



David

[David Dunlop]

When I painted the Tool Box, I had a 1-quart can of the Olive Green used by Canadian Marconi Company replicated at the local RONA Paint Shop in an Eggshell Finish Latex. I used about half that can when all was said and done. The paint had been mixed in September 2019, so it was pretty likely a number of Dye Lot changes for the various tints had likely evolved over the last three and a half years. That made me a little nervous purchasing additional paint. I certainly did not want the cost of a large can, pushing the $100.00 mark these days, so decided to stick with another quart can running just $26.00.

I took the first tin, with the formula on it, and the rear panel from my parts Coils, Aerial Box that has the minty original paint still on the inside, back to the RONA store last Sunday and had a second quart mixed. It was a spot on perfect match to the first can. Just to be sure, however, when I paint the Cases, Spares I am going to mix half of the new paint in with the older paint.



David

[David Dunlop]

The weather is still not great for yard chores, either too hot or just enough wind/rain to shut various projects down, so I was able to work on the Spare Parts Case and finished off the initial cleaning of all the metal hardware by completing this work on the bottom and front of the case this morning.

Good thing I had left the front until last. I had done this because cleaning the two latches is very fiddly work, but on this case, I discovered a layer of heavy tan yellow paint had been applied to the front and it covered all the metal hardware. I like getting the bulk of the old paint off the hardware by hand. It is time consuming, but saves a lot on wire wheels for the Dremel. Once the woodwork on the case has been sanded and repaired, where necessary, I can give all the metal parts a quick final clean with the small wire wheel and everything is ready for priming and painting a new Flat Olive Green top coat.

The Spare Parts Case is dimensionally larger than the Tool Box on all three axes, but carries an overall lighter load, being predominantly spare valves, fuses and light bulbs for the main 52-Set. Consequently, Canadian Marconi saved themselves some money by using the identical hardware items on both the Tool Box and Spare Parts Case: handles, latches, hinges and corner guards.


David

[David Dunlop]

The next thing I have to do on the Spare Parts Case is carefully sand down the lumpy runs of tan yellow paint on the inside lip of the case and lid. Fortunately, there are not many of them, I will also go over the edges of the lips, where necessary, to cover up the light green paint that found its way there.

It is important to get this done now and have enough time for the touch up paint work to hard cure as when it comes time to repaint the case, it is these two surfaces that the case will be resting on during painting and cure drying. So the sooner the work gets done, the better.

One other discovery at this point. I had assumed the KimPak padding in the Spare Parts Case was glued in place. However, the padding is in such great shape in this particular case I can easily see the small wire staples that were used about a half inch in around the perimeter of the padding to hold it in place.


David

[David Dunlop]

Another Stay Indoors day today, and a day off for me as well, so…’Bonus’!

I was able to sand down the lumpy paint runs along the edges of the lid and main body of the Spare Parts Box and give these edges a new coat of Flat Olive Drab. This is now the second wooden piece of the 52-Set Main Set for which the new paint has been an excellent match. It certainly does not hurt that these two cases/boxes have been closed for the vast majority of the last 80 years.

In this instance, the top surface of the wooden partition inside the case had no marks on it whatsoever. Note how well that factory paint matches the new paint.

Once the new paint has hard cured, in about 10 days, I will be able to close the case up without worry the newly painted surfaces might stick to each other, and proceed with the restoration process.


David

[David Dunlop]

Has anyone ever seen one of these publications? It was published by the Canadian Marconi Company and bears their Part Number, CMC 119-020.

Reference to this list shows up in the Master Parts List for the 52-Set, but nothing about it shows up at all in the Operator's Manual. I am assuming each 52-Set was issued with one so the printing run must have been on the order of 5,000 copies or so. I have no idea if the contents are identical the the list of items at the back of the Operators Manual for the Vehicle and Ground Installation, or perhaps just references just CMC Part Numbers for ordering directly from Canadian Marconi.

A bit of a mystery at this point.


David

[Bob Carriere]

....if you really want to keep your beer cold!!!!!!

You are a man of many talents.........

Went down to 7C last night..... the only cool place right now is inside the insulated barn..... and bug free!!!!!

Bob C

[David Dunlop]

I have been excited to be making some progress on the restoration of the Spare Parts Case for my 52-Set, but suddenly realized this morning I need to pause for a moment and focus on the Kimpak padding installed in this case. It is near minty, but I lost sight of the fact my other Spare Parts Case is in rough shape. The Kimpak padding is all still there, but pulled away in a few places and I need to pay attention to how it was installed, if I hope to make any decent attempt as restoring the second case. The best starting point for this documentation was to determine how this padding was mounted inside the Spare Parts Case.

My first thought when I obtained the first, rough shape Spare Parts Case several years ago was that is was simply glued in place and the parts of the padding that had come loose over the years were simply the result of the water damage the case encountered overall: the old ‘animal glues’ issue, end of story. Having now carefully vacuumed the dust and dirt out of this Spare Parts Case with a soft bristle brush attachment, I discovered the Kimpak padding was actually stapled in place. I am not sure what the actual name/type of staple is, or what the staple gun actually looks like, but it must have been an autofeed type of gun and probably air driven.

These two photos show the heads of two of the staples in the Kimpak padding fitted to the inside of the lid of the Spare Parts Case. The staple heads are roughly centre in each photo. My best measuring efforts suggest an inner spacing of the staple of 1/8-inch and an outside length of the head at 5/32-inch. I have no idea how long they are, but may see if one is available for extraction from the rough case to find out.

There is definitely a copper look to these staples, but they are magnetic, so I wonder if the staples were copper plated as a form of lube as they were driven from the staple gun to reduce wear on the gun itself? Determining the optimum air pressure for the staple gun must have been interesting. The wood is Pine, so not hard and the padding is just a fancy paper product, so you would want the head to nicely hold the padding in place but not punch right through it.

It is interesting how 80 years on from the manufacture of the 52-Set and all its components, we can struggle figuring out how they did it all, largely by hand and brain power, yet 80 years ago, all these manufacturing skills and techniques were day to day common events.

More to follow on the Kimpak padding installation shortly.



David

[David Dunlop]

Some initial general observations about the Kimpak padding used inside this case. It is basically a long, flat, heavy-duty, brown paper pouch that has been filled with. A mat of what is basically an 80 year old version of cellulose fibre. Think blown attic insulation today. The brown paper itself has the Kimpak logo printed in blue in diagonal rows of three along its length and was probably waterproofed with some form of oil based product because the case has that old, oily smell to it when opened in spite of no trace of oil ever being spilled in it, and it never being designed to hold oily items. I also know that the prior owner of this case obtained it as a newly surplussed item back in the 1970’s and used it as intended, to store NOS radio valves in their factory boxes.

The pouch of the padding is formed by folding the paper and creating a longitudinal running seam down the middle of the back of the pad, sealing in the cellulose in the process. The finished width of the pad is 8 inches and it was probably supplied by Kimberley Clark to Canadian Marconi Company in rolls, cut to required sizes at one or more stations on the production line. All of the padding was installed after the cases were painted and probably just before the exterior stencils were applied to the front of the case. The lengths of the pieces of padding all seem to be cut just long enough to form a snug fit for the two cut ends up against the interior wood surfaces of the case. Perhaps to keep these cut ends from lifting and tearing. Some edges look like they may have been tucked down in place.

The two pads in the lid and the floor of the left side compartment could have been installed at any point in the padding installation process. However, in the main, right side compartment, there was a specific sequence for the installation. The Kimpak is only 8 inches wide. The depth of this compartment is 9-1/2 inches, so the padding around the sides is set 3/4-inch off the bottom of the case all the way around, and there is a corresponding 3/4-inch space above the side padding. My first thought was that a slightly undersized 3/4-inch thick board would just be dropped into the box and then the side padding stapled in place. But then you would never get the board out. So they must have used two small strips of 3/4-inch board, two or three inches wide, placed one at either end. The padding is stiff enough this would work. After stapling the side padding in place, the two space strips could easily be slid parallel to the long axis of the case and lifted out. The bottom pad would then be stapled in place.

The one piece side pad starts butted into in the left rear corner of the main compartment, against the partition panel. It then runs across the rear wall of the compartment and wraps around the right rear corner. As it wraps to the right side wall, there is a vertical fold facing to the rear wall to help make the padding fit snugly into the corner. The padding runs along the right side and wraps into this corner, again with a fold on the right side wall, pointing to the rear. The padding then runs along the front wall of the case and wraps around the left front corner snugly, and with no fold this time, and heads along the partition wall to butt up against the Kimpak on the back wall.

The bottom pad in the left compartment has only one staple in each corner to secure it in place.

The padding in the lid has 3 staples down each end, one half to one inch in from each end, and two more front and back, roughly equally spaced.

The bottom pad in the main right side compartment has three staples down each end and one in the middle, front and back.

The side pad has four staples top and bottom on each end, 1/4 to 1/2 inch from the edges. There are five staples top and bottom roughly evenly spaced, 1/4 to 1/2 inches from the edges.

The first two photos posted today show the 3/4-inch gap at the bottom of the side padding in the main compartment. The third photo show the cut ends fitting against the case panels. The fourth photo is the start point of the side padding in the left rear corner of the main compartment and the last photo is one of the rolled in corner with the vertical fold just visible.



David

[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

[David Dunlop]

A couple of weeks ago, when the manual for the 52-Set surfaced on eBay, a second one was brought to my attention, off eBay but on the web. I eventually tracked it down and it was still available, so purchased it.

The manual arrived in the Post this morning from Northern England. It is in vastly better condition than the one I have been working with, no water damage at all and the spine is still stiff. The old manual will continue to be my working manual for the project. The schematics and most of the technical information is still readable, however, I will be rereading the dozen or so parts from the new manual which were damaged to the point of questionable reading in the old manual, to make sure I have everything straight. The new manual will then sit quietly in its receptacle on top of the Carriers No. 4 as. a permanent part of the set.

I did a similar thing back in the 80’s with my 19-Set Mk III, when a worn manual became my working manual and is close to being in loose leaf format today, while a much nicer manual became part of the set kit.

The photos show the old and new beside each other and one of the damaged set of pages from the two manuals for comparison. The last photo is the name and date found on the inside of the front cover of the new manual. Not sure at this point if this individual was a British Army member who worked with a 52-Set back in 1962, or if this might be the name of a British civilian who bought the manual in 1962. Perhaps even a British Amateur Radio operator back then.



David

[David Dunlop]

The putty filling and sand down of the grey case was completed this evening. The bulk of this work was on the top and bottom of the case.

I now have to test each metal corner guard for fit before remounting them as a few are bumped around a bit and some sides do not sit flush with the wood anymore. In fact, gap quite noticeably.

Once that is all done, the green and grey cases will both be up to date with each other.



David

[David Dunlop]

Final fills and sanding done on the grey case this morning and all the metal corner guards have been checked and reinstalled. only three of the eight needed a bit of careful hammer work to get them to sit flush on the case once again, and of those three, only one was quire bad. something had hit it on one side near the corner that really lifted that side off the wood. Fortunately I could just reach the raised bump on the inner side of the guard and work it flat.

So now both cases are ready to have all the metal bits final cleaned with the small steel wire wheel on the Dremel. Hopefully both cases will be done this step in the next week.


David

[David Dunlop]

All the metal hardware on both cases has been cleaned with the wire wheel and a coat of primer applied.

In reviewing my notes from restoring the tool box a few years ago, I found comments that it would be better to paint all the hardware Flat Olive Drab first, and then apply the colour to the rest of the box/case as the last step. I cannot recall what problem I encountered that prompted that conclusion, but will let the primer cure for a few days now and then give all the hardware an application of Flat Olive Drab.



David

[David Dunlop]

It has been an interesting weekend.

I powered up the 52-Set Friday evening to see what propagation was like and make sure my retuning of WWV from 10.0 MHz for the winter to 5.0 MHz for the summer was still tuned and stable. After the usual 10 to 12 second warmup, I was surprised to hear the merry hum of the vibrator coming from the speaker and no signals of any kind.

The meter was showing the usual LT reading of 11.0 Volts DC (still missing 1.70 Volts) but a quick check of the HT status showed a drop from the usual 130 Volts to just 70 Volts, well under the operating minimum mentioned in the manual. That discovery was followed by a quick shutdown.

Something has been stealing 1.7 Volts of Low Tension and 20 Volts of High Tension from the Receiver from the very start. I know the Vibrator is in great shape and the OZ4A was brand new prior to first starting the Supply Unit up.

Looking at the schematics, the first suspect I will have to look at is the 20 mF “Twins in a Tin” electrolytic filter caps, following a retest of the OZ4A on the Tube Tester. If that cap set checks out OK, the next on the list are two PIO electrolytic caps on the secondary side of the transformer. These are described as ‘Secondary Timing Capacitors’ in the manual. This is something new to me to wrap my head around. No references to such an animal at all in my 1960 and 1970 ARRL Handbooks, though all sorts of information seems to be on the internet with reference to these caps in modern solid state electronics.

Funny how Life always seems to send you a Learning Curve when you least expect it.


David

[David Dunlop]

This item arrived today, a Hickok 209A Multimeter. It is part of the list of test equipment used by the RCEME when servicing the Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian. In this role, it is better known under its Canadian licence built version, manufactured by Stark as the VT9A. These two products are virtually identical electronically and capability wise, differing only slightly in the positioning and identification of a few of the controls on the front panel.

I was very surprised when I discovered it was shipped to me in its original 1947 Hickok shipping box, and even more surprised when I found the Serial Number on the box was a match to the inspection card still attached to the meter and the data plate on the rear panel.

The unfortunate downside to all this, however, was the fact at some point in this meters history, somebody opened up the box and wogged the set of probes issued with the meter, along with the Manual. Still nice to run across an NOS test meter that was 76 years old though. That does not happen every day.

So between now and whenever the 52-Set Project reaches the point where I have to test the medium and high power outputs of the Sender, I can look for the missing probes used with this meter.

Oh, and one other thing, this meter is no light-weight. It measures 16.5” wide, 13.5” high and 8.5” deep and weighs between 15 and 20 pounds.



David

[David Dunlop]

I decided to perform a quick check-up on the Hickok 209A today before getting back to the two Spare Parts Cases.

It only took a few moments to realize this meter was actually not NOS, but a purchase that had been very carefully used and maintained over the years, to the point the purchaser had kept the original shipping box to store the meter in, while not in use. The AC cord originally equipped on the 209A was a rubber cord, 8 feet long, with the name HICKOK cast into the sides of the plug, which was a basic two pin plug. The AC cord presently on the meter is a black plastic one with a polarized plug, only 6 feet in length.

The front panel of this meter is a solid sheet of almost one eighth inch thick aluminum. The case is formed sheet steel with a coat of blue/grey enamel inside and out that has only three small chips on it. The bottom and the back of the case have four feet pressed into the steel and none of them have any trace of wear on the paint at all.

The chassis had the usual accumulation of static dust on the components that brushed away very easily and the clips for the two D-Cells used to power the Resistance function were both empty.

I had a pair of about half power D-Cells on hand that I installed, and I carefully pulled he four valves and ran them through my tube tester. Only V2, the 6X5GT Capacity Voltage Rectifier, failed at 32% on both sides. The other three valves in the chassis came in between 68% and 92%. With no spares on hand, the four original valves went back in for the purposes of live checks of the ability of the circuits to be zero set. The manual gives nice instructions for these tests.

The mechanical zero set of the meter before power up was spot on perfect and that huge meter is a delight to read! Even after a 5 minute warm up, with the wonky valve, none of the functions could be zeroed, but the meter did respond in each instance in the right way. Even the weak batteries in the Resistance Mode gave the correct response, stopping about 20 points off reaching full scale.

On powering off, the meter needle dove below zero on the scale and then quickly came back up to zero as the capacitors in the circuits bled out. So overall, in spite of no probes and leads yet, I am quite pleased with where this part of the project is headed.

The other interesting thing was finding a shipping label on the box from the Railway Express Agency dated August, 1948. This shipping company was a giant in its day; think modern day FEDEX. Worth looking up its history for a good read and discovering where todays American Express credit card company got its start, along with several other companies.



David

[David Dunlop]

Another stinky hot day today so I got all the errands/chores done early and retired to the basement to paint the two Spare Parts Cases. Both are now done save for any small touch ups after they have hard cured for a couple of weeks.

The green case, I will be adding to the 52-Set kit is the one in the foreground and the grey one is behind it.

The more I work with this Flat Olive Green colour that Canadian Marconi used on the 52-Set, the more it fascinates me. Note how, strictly on the way available light strikes the paint, the rear case looks olive green but the front one looks more like No. 2 Brown and out in the daylight this colour almost self-camouflages.

Once the hard cure is reached, I will be adding the stencil IDs to both cases.



David

[David Dunlop]

Oops!

I got a little ahead of myself in the last Post. That was actually just the first coat of Flat Olive Green paint. I got the second coat applied this evening and am still on target for the hard cure to be reached in 12 more days.


David

[David Dunlop]

Halfway through the hard cure time for the two cases now so I was able to get them right side up on the desk once again to finish the remaining week of curing.

There are a few small paint runs on one of the lips of one case that will need to be gently sanded down and possibly retouched once the paint is fully hardened but other than that, I will be able to get the Oil Board Stencil for the markings test fitted for the application of the original factory markings.


David

[David Dunlop]

A quick shift in focus to an earlier, related topic.

Jordan Baker sent me the attached photo of a pair of 52-Set Tool Boxes currently for sale on FB Market Place. $50.00 each, or the pair for $75.00.

The interesting thing about them is they still have most of their original factory Flat Olive Green paint and original stencils. These two boxes bring the total number of current survivors I am aware of to five in all. Four in Canada, including mine, and one in the UK. Three in Canada are still original externally, as is the one in the UK, whereas mine had gone NATO.

For the people interested in the 52-Set, the Tool Box seems to be the more difficult accessory to find, compared to the other two wooden cases. The prevalent thought for this phenomenon seems to be that at some point after the war and before the conversion to NATO Standard Paint in the Canadian Army, somebody in the Supply System realized the tools contained within this particular box for the 52-Set were nothing more than standard hand tools already held in supply under their own stock numbers. So the story goes these tool boxes were stripped of their tools which went back into the supply system under their individual stock numbers and the empty boxes were ‘destroyed, burned, or buried’, depending on which version of the information you encounter. The only survivors were tool boxes that had already been issued and which were in use. Being in use, they all got the NATO treatment paint-wise.

The fact three tool boxes have now turned up in Canada with original paintwork suggests the prevailing story is not entirely true and more documentation on the matter may eventually turn up clarifying it all.

It would make sense if you had a large number of fully equipped tool boxes sitting in a depot unused to redistribute their contents, but it is probably unlikely the entire stock was written off. It would still have been prudent to keep a limited supply of complete tool boxes on hand to replace any that were lost from the ones then in service. Same goes for the boxes themselves. A number on empty boxes were probably retained in the inventory to replace damaged or lost ones in use. When the 52-Set was finally declared obsolete and disposed of, surviving boxes in the supply system were then sold off and it is these items showing up today.

Still nice to know, however, that 80 year old items for the 52-Set keep turning up from time to time.


David

[David Dunlop]

The factory ID stencils are now on the two Spare Parts cases and this step in the project is now done. The case I will be keeping is the one on the left in the first photo.

The mystery now will be trying to figure out the most logical way the staff at the factory packed these cases upon completion with the required items. The photos in the manual give some clue but a lot of decisions will be in the realm of ‘Best Guess’ I suspect.

The second photo is just the Tool Box and the Spare Parts Case sitting side by side. Probably been a while for either of them since that last happened.


David

[David Dunlop]

You may recall when I was working on the other two boxes/cases for the 52-Set, the presence of a tan/yellow paint on the front of these items kept popping up. Well this last case to be restored for the project, the Cases, Operating, Remote Receiver, should finally explain what was going on.

Subsequent to the original factory finishing of the three boxes/cases for the 52-Set by Canadian Marconi Company, this equipment went through several upgrades while in service with the Canadian Army, throughout the later 40’s and 1950’s. This typically involved a repaint in the new NATO green that had entered the system, and slight variations to the stencilling, which was still in white paint, but usually in different locations on the front panel of the box/case, and quite often included deletion of the CMC Part Number information.

Around 1960, when the new NATO Stock Number System conversion was in full swing, it appears that in order to completely remove all traces of any of the older stencil information, the quick way was to paint this old information completely over on the front panel with a thick coat of tan/yellow paint, and apply the new NATO Stock Number data in black paint.

So the first line on the stencil in this photo is the NATO Stock Number equivalent of the wartime VAOS Stock Number ZA/CAN 4729. I have no idea what the remaining information means. This would have been the item description in the old VAOS System, but what I see here, suggests that if one needs to know what this item actually is, you need to look that information up somewhere else.

The last line, hand written in black felt marker would have been written on the case when the 52-Set equipment was finally surplussed out of the supply system in the early 1970’s, in the Canadian Army.



David

[David Dunlop]

As part of the introduction to this case, I have added a couple of more basic photos today. The first is a quick look at the interior, showing the two wooden partition walls and the general layout of the inside of the case.

The large central section holds the Remote Receiver Supply, and at the very least, its Connectors, Plug, No. 1 which feeds the power to the Remote Receiver. The Leads, Battery No. 1 and Leads, Earth No. C3 may also fit in this section of the case.

The right hand section is lined with KimPak on all sides and holds the complement of spare valves for the Remote Receiver and Remote Supply, spare vibrator and fuses for the Remote Supply and the spare Bulbs, 12V “F” for the Remote Receiver.

The unpadded left hand section would hold the remaining items to support the operation of the Remote Receiver and I won’t even attempt a guess on how at the moment.

All of the factory original Flat Olive Drab paint is still present inside this case. The Contents List on the lid is near mint and there is no damage present on any of the KimPak padding. A couple of interesting notes, however. When this case was painted NATO Green at some point, the painter took the time to edge the top of the box, the rim of the lid and the top edges of the two partitions, there are a few small runs of this paint on some of the upper walls of the case that will have to be sanded and restored, when the time comes. Also notice how the tan/yellow coat of paint on the exterior front panel of the case has some small runs in the paint that accumulated along the front edges of the inner walls. This would indicate the case was placed on its back, front up, when given the coat of tan/yellow on the front and its new NATO Stock Number.

The only other thing of note at this point is the presence of a white stencilled number on the lower right side of the box, as per the second photo today. I have absolutely no idea what this number means. It does not follow either the old VAOS Stock Number System, or the NATO Stock Number System.


David