[David Dunlop]

Have you even been working away on your favourite military restoration project and you stumble across something that makes you wish the item you are working on could talk and explain its history to you?

I hit one of those moments last night with this project quite by accident.

While moving the front panel of the Coil assembly across my work bench the angle of the task light struck the front of the reinforcing plate spot welded around the hole for the Dial Counter shaft.

I freely admit I know nothing about spot welding equipment. We have a couple at the auto dealership where I work and there my knowledge ends. In the first photo today, you can see the two spot weld dimples roughly either side of the Dial Counter shaft. The head on this particular machine clearly had rounded triangular electrodes and the work is very neat and clean. This front panel is off my spare parts Coil assembly.

Now take a look at the second photo of the front panel I am restoring. This was the one I was moving when it caught my eye. What on earth happened here? It is absolutely covered in spot welds! What possible story is being told here? Was it training day on the Production Line? Were they having equipment issues? Is this post-production, service life repairs?

Add into that a technical question that suddenly popped up as well.

Any spot welding work I have ever seen produces a dimple on both sides of the items being welded together as they become fused. As per the last photo today, neither of my Coil assembly front panels have any trace at all of spot welding on the backs of them. How is that accomplished, I now wonder…



David