Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

Finally caught up on another little task this morning; getting the stencils back onto the Reels, Cable No. 2 Mk II for the 52-Set.

These reels are identical to the standard, similar reels of this type issued by both the Canadian and British Armies, but like a number of the items Canadian Marconi Company issued with the various 52-Set Kits, they ordered a number of reels directly from a manufacturer, and a CMC Part Number was added into the stencils for these items.

Since the stencils applied to the similar, but more robust reels used with the Aerial 4-Section that came with the 52-Set, were sprayed in a fairly light coat of flat white paint, I decided to go with the same process for this cable reel.

The first step was to trim down the two stencils I had made last year, so they would fit properly on either side of the hub assembly on the free end of the reel, as per the reel used with the horizontal aerial. Once the two stencils were properly trimmed and taped down, I masked off all the exposed areas on the reel with newsprint and applied several light coats of flat white spray paint from a height of about 18 to 20 inches and let the paint more or less float down onto the reel, to minimize any excess spray getting driven under the oil board. It took a few careful passes from several different directions to get a paint density comparable to the original markings on the aerial reel, and 20 minutes later, I was able to remove the stencils and found no trace of overspray anywhere.

Nice to have one more part of the project out of the way.


David