[David Dunlop]

It has been said before, but one of the nicest things about MLU is the collective knowledge of all the members and how frequently it all comes together when working out the details of many restoration projects.

This pool of knowledge proved its value again this last week, starting with Chris’ comments regarding the likelihood the Connectors, Twin No. 17 assembly for the Wireless Set No. 52 may have been waxed when finished, rather than varnished. I had seen, but not recognized those details when examining mine, and it all made sense. It also proved very advantageous with regards to restoring this connector assembly.

There are a few scuffs on this connector but nothing at all close to fully penetrating the rather heavy outer cotton loom. With all traces of the original red colour gone from the positive cable, the absence of varnish means that with a little cleaning, the cotton loom will be able to accept a new dye treatment rather easily. That would not have been the case at all, had these cables been varnished.

Next was Chris’ comment that the original red colour was very likely a Chinese Red and that colour dye was known to fade out rather quickly back in the day. The question was then what type of dye to try and use for the restoration. The commonest dyes today for fabrics are RIT Company and are water based. They work by soaking for a given period of time. Not a good plan for a big, long electrical cable. While looking at information on-line for ‘Chinese Red’ I stumbled across a photo of a red shoe cream which was the colour I was looking for and when I traced the source of the photograph, found Moneysworth and Best was the maker. This had possibilities. It could be applied by hand, had a wax and petroleum distillates base and would be absorbed easily by the cotton loom. It would also be less prone to bleeding out of the loom over time, compared to water based dyes. So I ordered a jar each of the red and black shoe cream. For reference, the two colour codes are:

Red - #30523
Black - #30500

I ordered them from Amazon.ca on Friday and they arrived late Saturday afternoon. Photo attached.

David