[David Dunlop]

Sadly, when I had my WIRE 5, it was only my 2nd MV restoration and I had not yet fully understood the invaluable lesson of taking photos of everything to do with this kind of project, let alone serious note and measurement taking, so please forgive the lack of detail here. My hope is some of you may be able to recognize the pieces, if you are missing them and or better understand how they worked. If any one has an original one of these tables, please post pictures and specifics.

I have added a sketch of the general look of the Cypher Clerk's table and the two support rod assemblies for it. IIRC, the hinge at the back of the table was piano style, but don't quote me. The two support assemblies were mounted on the wall of the wireless body below and just inboard of the outside edges of the table. The upper clips for the supports were definitely U-clips. The lower ones may have been U-clips immediately below the weld for the cross brace, but I am leaning towards a socket bracket right at the bottom of each vertical rod.

The support rods folded over one another against the wall when the table was not in use and the table dropped down over them. I think a spring clip was attached to the wall that engaged the front centre metal trim of the table top.
The metal trim around the edge of the table top extended about one half inch or more below the plywood. This allowed the two retaining clips to be screwed underneath either side, just aft of the corner tapers that locked the ends of the support bracket rods in place. It struck me at the time, the metal edge trimming for the Cypher Clerk Table looked very much like what was seen on 1930's era kitchen tables, but everything was painted white.

For what it is worth, these table assemblies were in short supply in all the boxes I saw at Princess. Most had nothing at all in that location and showed signs of repaint over that spot predating being surpassed out. A few had fixed brackets and basic ply tables installed. Not totally sure the tables were popular enough to disappear for that reason, but think they may have fallen into disuse due to the progressive failure of the interior plywood walls in these bodies. The original plywood was all constructed using common animal glues. Over time, these bodies start to leak and the constant exposure to moisture is fatal for the integrity of the old plywood. My WIRE 5 body had a few sections of wall that were visibly in tough shape. The rest looked pretty good, until I removed it to use as reference pieces for cutting new replacements. Within a few weeks of drying out indoors, even though it was still close to it's original thickness, the individual plies in each sheet started to separate from each other.


David