[David Dunlop]

I was finally able to pull my notes together and come up with a logical production process for the tool box at Canadian Marconi Company, taking into consideration they would have focused a lot on as simple a line as possible, that was cost effective and easy to understand.

All three boxes/cases manufactured for the 52-Set by CMC, along with the wooden case for the Coils, Aerial Tuning, are constructed of clear pine. Clear pine boards in large sizes are expensive. You can get around this, however, by getting pine boards cut in smaller sized boards and building them up to the sizes you need. Based on the construction details of the grey Spare Parts Box I found a couple of years back, one could see the tongue and groove details in the smaller pieces of pine used to build the larger panels making up the box.

So once you have a supply of the correct sized boards available, the wood requirement for one box becomes two matched end plates, two matched sides and a pair of top and bottom covers. The ends and sides would be sent through a finger joint maker to have the correct ends of each prepared for gluing and assembly.

The top and bottom boards both have 10 countersunk screw holes drilled around their edges. Two are on each end and three spaced down the long sides. The spacing is identical top and bottom. The most reliable, consistent way for Canadian Marconi to do that would be with some form of gang drill. A board would be inserted and held in place while the gang drill came down and drilled/countersunk all ten holes at once, fast and accurate. These boards would then arrive at the assembly point on the line where they would be glued and screwed down onto the four other finger jointed box panels that were being assembled.

At this point on the line, you would have a whole bunch of wooden boxes with very little extra information to go on. The two opposite sides with the 10 countersunk wood screws around the perimeter would be known as potential tops and bottoms, but fronts and backs could go either way. So in order to remove as much confusion as possible farther down the assembly line, the remaining sides of the toolbox must be readily identifiable. This could all be accomplished at a second well-equipped gang drill station.

At this station, an assembled toolbox would be loading onto the table, with either of the two panels with the 10 countersunk screws in it facing up. Once in place, one set of drills could be lowered to make the four rivet holes for the two hinge straps and the three rivet holes for the two handle brackets, thereby forever confirming the top panel with the 10 countersunk holes as ‘the top’. A second set of drills would come into the front panel and make the four rivet holes for each Latch Assembly and the three rivet holes for the bracket inside the toolbox that holds the tip of the soldering iron. A final set of drill would come on at the back of the box and make the four upper rivet holes for the two hinge straps and the countersunk hole for the machine screw that holds the large bracket on the back wall of the box for the hydrometer case.

At this point, all six faces of the toolbox can be clearly identified, which makes things a whole lot easier down the line.

The next stop on the line would be a band saw station where the box would be loaded such that the saw would be trimming off what will become the lid of the toolbox. Once the two parts are apart, drop the lid into its box and deliver both to the next station. This one took a bit of thinking, but the final clue was in the fact that two of the countersunk wood screws on the back edge of the lid, the countersunk machine screw holding the hydrometer bracket and the 6 finishing nails securing the interior wood partition all have to be filled and sanded down before any riveted hardware is installed, because some of those filled holes get covered with the hinge hardware on the back and lid. If you have to do that fill and sanding work at more than one station on the line, you are not going to be cost effective.

So I suspect that once the box and its lid were two separate items, the next station was where the wooden partition was installed using a spacer block to line it up. The three nails on the front and back of the box are all amazingly close to the centerlines of the edges of the partition. Easy to do with a little practice looking straight down from the top. The vertical placement front and back of each of the three nails are within about ¼-inch of each other. With the wooden partition in place, the metal hydrometer bracket could then be installed, using the top of the partition to get the bracket correctly squared in place.

Filling and sanding of all countersunk hardware could then take place.

There could be some variation in the sequence in which the riveted hardware was fitted, but while still on its own, it would be easy to install the soldering iron bracket and the two lower latch assemblies to the front of the box next.

The handle would be easy to do first on the lid, followed by the rivets securing the two upper latch sections to the front edge and the hinges to the lid. The last and trickiest riveting would be the ones securing the hinge straps to the back of the box, simply because you would now be dealing with working on one big item, in two parts, that want to swing about on the hinge straps.

After that point, the only hardware left to install on the box was the eight metal corner protectors (three round head, slotted wood screws in each), and filling the remaining holes on the hinges and latches with the same wood screws.

Then it would be off to the paint shop for an overall coat of paint inside and out and the addition of the stencil on the front panel. The List of Contents would then be glued onto the inside of the lid, the contents packed and the toolbox inspected and approved for packing.

The attached photos today show the bottom of the toolbox, the front, the top and the back, for reference.

While thinking about this box, I realized how wonderful it would be to find factory packing instructions for equipment like this. I cannot think of how many times I have looked into my Spare Parts Case for my 19-Sets and wondered how they were actually packed at the factory. I know all the bits are there, but it looks a mess and getting it all to fit and look right is yet to be accomplished.


David