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  #1141  
Old 03-01-25, 01:41
David Dunlop David Dunlop is offline
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Default COIL, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A. ZA/CAN 4725

The centre upper and lower front panel mounting brackets have now been cleaned, re-plated and reinstalled.

The last two for this part of the project are the upper left and right brackets and hopefully;;y I can get them done on the weekend.


David
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Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 84.JPG  
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  #1142  
Old 03-01-25, 16:10
James D Teel II James D Teel II is offline
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Beautiful work as always.
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James D. Teel II
Edmond, Oklahoma
Retired Police Sergeant/Bomb Tech
1943 Willys MB/ITM jeep
1942 SS Cars No1Mk1 LtWt trailer
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  #1143  
Old 05-01-25, 04:42
David Dunlop David Dunlop is offline
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Default COIL, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A. ZA/CAN 4725

Thanks, James. I am happy I can still at least muddle along.

Today I got the last two front panel mounting brackets cleaned, zinc plated and reinstalled in the upper corners, so I am now finished with that bit, but still have a little new research to sort out, hopefully in the next week or so.

In the meantime, I plan to work on the two Aerial Input Terminals, located on the lower rear sides of the case. Both seemed OK when I disassembled and removed them last year, but it's time for a closer look.


David
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Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 85.JPG   Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 86.JPG  
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  #1144  
Old 06-01-25, 03:05
David Dunlop David Dunlop is offline
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Default COIL, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A. ZA/CAN 4725

I got the right side Input Aerial Terminal disassembled cleaned and re-plated this afternoon. The main component of this assembly shows up in the Master Parts List as:

STUDS, Brass, Special, ANF 10-32, 1-21/32 inches long, No. C1 ZA/CAN 8048

It is machined from 1/4-inch brass bar stock and once the wing nut is fitted, the end of the threaded shaft is mushroomed slightly to prevent loss of the wing nut. It would have been easier to deal with the shaft being drill through and a small D-Ring fitted, as you have to carefully press this stud assembly out of the brown phenolic resin plate it is fitted to in order to get the entire assembly free from the coil case.

I discovered the rear edge of the resin plate showed signs of the bcd saw blade bucking when the plate was cut, leaving some light tan marks on the edge. A thin coat of clear nail polish reduced the visibility of these marks by about 50 % so I was pleased you can still notice the damage but not so glaringly any more.


David
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Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 87.JPG   Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 88.JPG  
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  #1145  
Old 06-01-25, 19:38
David Dunlop David Dunlop is offline
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Default COIL, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A. ZA/CAN 4725

I was able to reinstall the right side Aerial Input Terminal last evening and once the Stud assembly with its captive wing nut was back in place, made an interesting discovery.

I had assumed the mushroom effect applied to the tip of the shaft the wing nut moves on was simply achieved by a sharp rap with a hammer. However, as you can see in the photo of this assembly back in place, the newly cleaned and re-plated tip of the shaft revealed it had been struck with a small cross punch to achieve the mushroom effect. I was pleased another little detail finally came to light...literally.

Hopefully, I will be able to clean, re-plate and reinstall the Aerial Input Terminal on the left side of the coil case today.


David
Attached Thumbnails
Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 89.JPG   Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 90.JPG   Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 91.JPG   Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 92.JPG   Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 93.JPG  

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  #1146  
Old 07-01-25, 02:37
David Dunlop David Dunlop is offline
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Default COIL, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A. ZA/CAN 4725

A productive afternoon today after all the errands were out of the way.

The left side Aerial Input Terminal assembly was stripped down, cleaned and re-plated. At the start of this I cleaned and checked the end of the stud behind the wing nut, and sure enough, it also revealed the mark from a cross punch used to mushroom the end of the stud.

When this terminal assembly was reinstalled on the left side of the coil case, I realized the only item left to deal with was the large Aerial Output Terminal located on the upper left side rear corner. I pulled it out of storage to see what work was required on it and was pleasantly surprised the metal work on it was nickel plated and in very good condition. A quick disassembly and cleaning and I was able to reinstall it as well. That just leaved three sets of hardware to clean and re-plate for the coil case and those can wait until I deal with the now pending work on the actual front panel of the Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A.

That should be fun.


David
Attached Thumbnails
Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 94.JPG   Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 95.JPG   Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 96.JPG   Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 97.JPG   Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 98.JPG  

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  #1147  
Old 11-01-25, 22:04
David Dunlop David Dunlop is offline
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Default COIL, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A. ZA/CAN 4725

Apart from four different sets of coil case hardware that need to be cleaned and have a new coast of zinc plating reapplied, the next major step in restoring this Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A has to be the removal of the front panel from the coil chassis assembly, so that it can be stripped down of old paint, repainted and new luminous decals applied. This part of the project comes with some trepidation. The attached photos in this post are all of my spare parts coil front panel, which spent enough time in its life in a damp environment that its tuning/tracking assembly seized up completely and broke.

Once this panel is removed from the coil chassis assembly, there are only two parts still attached to it: the Tuning Counter assembly, and just under it, the Screw, Special, Brass post that forms the basis of the locking assembly for the tuning control. There is a large reinforcing plate fitted over the drive shaft of the counter. Two large spot welds secure it to the front panel and two of the three mounting screws that fasten the counter to the back of the front panel pass through the lower portion of the reinforcing plate. The third mounting screw sits just above this plate on the panel. When the tuning knob is in place, the reinforcing plate is largely obscured. The reinforcing plate prevents the front panel from flexing when the coarse tuning lever has been extended from the front of the tuning knob and can act as a lever which might otherwise bend the tuning shaft out of alignment.

When I was restoring the Sender, I had to remove a pair of these Counter assemblies from its front panel and the hardware all came free very easily. I have tried several times to remove these same item from this coil front panel with no success at all. Since those attempts, I have subsequently discovered the coil front panel is aluminum plate, not steel like the Sender front panel. I am now thinking that electrolytic reactions between the aluminum, brass and zinc, in conjunction with the dampness the coil was exposed to, may have fused this hardware solid. In addition, the hardware holding the Screw, Special, Brass in place is alarmingly tiny stuff: 2-56 zinc plated brass hardware I believe.

I am hoping I am correct about this spare parts panel and that the hardware will pop loose OK on the front panel for my working coil assembly, but it is definitely a concerning task ahead.


David
Attached Thumbnails
Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 99.JPG   Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 100.JPG   Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 101.JPG   Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 102.JPG  
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  #1148  
Old 12-01-25, 00:58
David Dunlop David Dunlop is offline
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Default COIL, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A. ZA/CAN 4725

Time to back track a little.

Back on Page 37, in Post #1097, I hd commented on finding numbers stamped onto the two phenolic resin side plates and bottom plate of the coil chassis: four digit numbers in blue ink. This was present on nothing coil chassis I have on hand and the three numbers on each chassis were matched sets. I hd assumed at that time these were possibly production control numbers, but looked rather sophisticated compared to the large hand written similar numbers found on the main component chassis of the 52-Set.

Well, when looking at the rear of the front panel from my parts coil assembly today, I noticed another faint four digit number, hand stamped in blue ink, in the upper right rear corner of the front panel, just beside a small circular Canadian Marconi Company inspection stamp with the number ‘686’ inside the circle. These markings bracket the two mounting holes in the front panel for the Plates, Phenolic, Calibration. When I checked this number ‘8798’ with those found earlier on the three coil chassis plates, they all matched. Interestingly, the assigned Serial Number for this coil assembly on its Data plate happens to be ‘8963’.

The dilemma is that the other coil assembly I have bears the stamped number ‘3978’ and that coil assembly is missing its data plate, and adding more mud to the waters is the fact serial numbering for the 52-Set started at ‘5001’. And the rear side of that coil front panel has been wiped clean at some point, probably during a workshop rebuild.



David
Attached Thumbnails
Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 103.JPG   Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A 104.JPG  
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  #1149  
Old 22-01-25, 02:49
David Dunlop David Dunlop is offline
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Default SUPPLY UNITS, No. ZE-12 ZA/CAN 4726/1

A little diversion.

A couple of these Supply Units have recently shown up on the UK eBay site. They do, from time to time, but these two were useful as they had a lot of photos to examine and they were still in worn, but original factory paint and markings. A rare thing on this side of the Atlantic.

What struck me on both was that directly above their data plates, which are centred on the back of the chassis plate, was a stamped, four digit number which had been carefully varnished over to protect it. Finding one such arrangement would have been nicely odd, but two of them strongly suggests these numbers were important. My thinking went straight to them being yet another version of a Production Control Number for these supplys used until the final data plates were attached to the units.

Unlike the other components of the 52-Set where these 4-digit numbering system show up, neither of these were close to the final assigned serial numbers on their data plates, but both were very close to being 4,800 numbers lower. That is getting remarkably close to the possible total production run of 52-Sets, of around 5,000.

Close to 90% of the design of the ZE-11 Supply used with the Wireless Set No. 9 Mk I Cdn was carried over into the ZE-12 Supply that formed part of the 52-Set. Over the years of this project, I have heard a few independent stories that CMC encountered some production delays in getting the ZE-12 built. I am sure whatever those delays were, they could not have shut things down for the bulk of the 52-Set production run.

Some of these stories further related that Canadian Marconi Company was able to maintain full production flow by simply producing an extended run of ZE-11 Supply Units short term, to fill the gap. Chatting with Jacques Fortin about this earlier today, he confirmed that when he bought three surplussed fully equipped Cases, Operating Remote for the 52-Set back in the 1970’s, two came equipped with ZE-12 Supply Units but the third one contained a ZE-11. So perhaps, any Production Control Number system that was up and running for the ZE-11 Supply Unit was simply continued while ZE-11’s were built for the 52-Set and nobody bothered resetting it once the ZE-12 came on line.

Be nice to find more of these paired up numbers to see what they have to say. I also now have to take another closer look at my own ZE-11 Supply Unit. It came with my Remote Receiver for the 52-Set and these receivers used the same connector cable in both the 52-Set Remote and No. 9 Mk I Remote configurations.


David
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Remote Supply 1B.jpg   Remote Supply 2A.jpg  
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  #1150  
Old 27-01-25, 21:51
David Dunlop David Dunlop is offline
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Default HYDROMETERS, Secy Cell, Portable Cdn, Mk 1 ZB/CAN 0641

This little gem arrived in todays Post, much to my great relief.

I discovered it for sale in England back in November and purchased it one week before Canada Post went on strike. The vender was wonderful enough to get it all ready to go but put it on the back shelf until the strike ran its course. He was able to get it in the overseas mail finally two weeks ago.

Typically, this is a nice accessory to a wartime wireless set to have, but not essential. There were a lot of them surplussed out in the 1970’s, but they tended not to fair well in civilian life.

If one back tracks on this thread to around Page 30, Post #873, this will take you roughly to May/June of 2022 when I was trying to sort out a missing metal bracket in the Tool Box for the 52-Set. Via a process of examining the traces in the box and the tools that were in the box, the only logical use for the missing bracket would have been to help support the box the hydrometer came in, so I rolled the dice and based the final length of the bracket on being just large enough to hold the wooden box. The only way to prove the concept was to now find the needed hydrometer, and the correct one finally turned up last Fall.

The Parts List label was originally glued to the right side of the lid, you can see the trace of it there, and it should be easy enough to carefully steam press the label flat and re-glue it in its proper place. My guess at the size of the bracket was perfect. The box sits on it with just enough room for the small brass hinge on the right rear side to clear the back of the lid of the box, when the Tool Box is closed. The hydrometer box slides back and forth from side to side in the box as expected and is prevented from falling down into the interior of the tool box by the bracket on the right and the handle of the ball pean hammer resting on top of the partition on the left, as expected.

It has taken nearly three years to finally prove the concept of the recreation of the missing support bracket, but it has been worth the wait. I cannot stop grinning this afternoon.


David
Attached Thumbnails
Hydrometer, Secondary Cell Cdn 1.JPG   Hydrometer, Secondary Cell Cdn 2.JPG   Hydrometer, Secondary Cell Cdn 3.JPG   Hydrometer, Secondary Cell Cdn 4.JPG   Hydrometer, Secondary Cell Cdn 5.JPG  

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  #1151  
Old 28-01-25, 16:15
James D Teel II James D Teel II is offline
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Oh that's a very nice hydrometer!
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James D. Teel II
Edmond, Oklahoma
Retired Police Sergeant/Bomb Tech
1943 Willys MB/ITM jeep
1942 SS Cars No1Mk1 LtWt trailer
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  #1152  
Old 05-02-25, 04:31
David Dunlop David Dunlop is offline
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It did take a while, James, and I wonder sometimes passing on items that show up at the wrong time, price or condition. I did pass up another one in the UK a week earlier because it had a badly stained case. I guess I chose the right wine to toast the Gods with this time.


David
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  #1153  
Old 05-02-25, 14:33
Chris Suslowicz Chris Suslowicz is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by David Dunlop View Post
It did take a while, James, and I wonder sometimes passing on items that show up at the wrong time, price or condition. I did pass up another one in the UK a week earlier because it had a badly stained case.
Not just stained: there was severe acid damage to one end of the lid.

Quote:
I guess I chose the right wine to toast the Gods with this time.

David
Definitely.

Chris.
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