Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[Bob Carriere]

Could a very light canary yellow or very light grey be substituted for the white color?????

[David Dunlop]

The last major piece of this project arrived yesterday afternoon via FedEx. Quite an impressive beast when you get it unpacked!

Main plan for it at the moment is a basic clean up of all the years of dirt and grime accumulation. Sadly, it underwent a 1960’s era repaint in which all original finish was stripped and NATO green applied. Like the Remote Receiver Case I found, even the inside of the carrier was painted. In the Remote Receiver Case, the paint inside was thin enough the two grounding springs in the upper back of the case were still capable of grounding the case to the chassis of the receiver. The paint job on this Carriers No. 4, however, is so thick inside, I don’t think any of the six grounding springs could work properly again.

Once cleaned, I must read up in the manual about the correct way to reinstall the three components. Jacques Fortin brought this point to my attention, as it is a very tricky task. A 52-Set definitely makes for a very interesting learning curve!

David

[David Dunlop]

Hi Bob.

In reply to your question on water transfer decal colours, it could easily be done that way, yes.

From what I can piece together, the original decals were printed with the layers of paint colours built up on them. This included the small patches of luminous paint. When you look at the original decals up close at an angle, you notice they are not completely flat on the radio panels. There is always a subtle rectangular raised patch visible, where the pad of luminous paint was applied. The lettering in this instance is the clear portions of the decal allowing the 'white' luminous paint patch to show through.

If one is restoring a panel and not worried about the decals being luminous anymore, white background transfer sheets are a good fit. If, however, one wants to preserve the glow in the dark appearance of the panel, things get a lot more complicated, quickly. Commercial printers could possible reproduce the original luminous decals, but at what cost? I have some ideas to work around that problem floating about in my head at the moment, but have not yet made complete sense of it all.

Adding to the problem, is the luminous paints used during the 1940's. They all have a very similar, if not in fact identical appearance in daylight: a milky white colour. Under UV stimulation, however, some glow blue, some yellow, some orange and some green. Probably other colours and shade factors out there as well. Blues and greens are reasonably common in craft supply places today, but I have not looked enough to see if other colours can be had with the required milky white daytime appearance. I have found an orange one, but it comes as a neon orange daytime colour. Yikes!

David

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

Dave, I would never have believed a loose 52 set carrier would be out there. Good find!!!!! I think you and I need to mix up a batch of matt brown wrinkle paint.

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

The last major piece of this project arrived yesterday afternoon via FedEx. Quite an impressive beast when you get it unpacked!

Main plan for it at the moment is a basic clean up of all the years of dirt and grime accumulation. Sadly, it underwent a 1960’s era repaint in which all original finish was stripped and NATO green applied. Like the Remote Receiver Case I found, even the inside of the carrier was painted. In the Remote Receiver Case, the paint inside was thin enough the two grounding springs in the upper back of the case were still capable of grounding the case to the chassis of the receiver. The paint job on this Carriers No. 4, however, is so thick inside, I don’t think any of the six grounding springs could work properly again.

Once cleaned, I must read up in the manual about the correct way to reinstall the three components. Jacques Fortin brought this point to my attention, as it is a very tricky task. A 52-Set definitely makes for a very interesting learning curve!

David

[David Dunlop]

Actually, Bruce, it was part of a complete set out of Quebec. The Supply Unit and Sender are its mates. The complete set was $200.00 Cdn. I did not need the Receiver so gave it to Jacques Fortin to save a bit on shipping costs.

Its interesting, Bruce, in the roughly three years I have been looking for 52-Set parts, two complete sets have surfaced. This one and another about a year ago in Alberta. That one started out at $400 Cdn, jumped to $1,000 and then went dark. It might still be out there. Neither of the owners knew to identify what they had by the information on the ID tags on each component in front of them. The sets showed up on line as ‘Old Army Radio’, ‘Antique Military Radio’, or some other description. If you look on line under those types of terms, you get swamped with hits. Thousands of items pop up, covering all decades from WW2 to the present. Makes it really hard. I have come to suspect these sets, though few in numbers, are still very much out there. The trick is flushing them out.

It will be interesting to sort out a good wrinkle No. 2 Brown. Very few enamels still out there and even fewer wrinkle options. Compounding the problem is the fact ‘wrinkle’ does not seem to define a single thing, but more typically a spectrum of paints, all of which seem to show up on wartime wireless equipment sooner or later.

While I think of it, Bruce. The mounting hardware securing the Receiver, Supply Unit and Sender in this 52-Set was missing. My Remote Receiver Case has 1/4-20 hex bolts holding the Receiver in place. I am running with that for the Carriers No. 4 at the moment, but find it interesting there are no tools in the set Tool Box to accommodate hex bolts of any size. There are, however, three different sized slot head screw drivers. So, perhaps the mounting hardware was slotted, round head 1/4-20 machine screws. Access to all the screw heads would be a challenge for any of the three sized screw drivers in the tool box, as there are so many knobs, dials and fiddly bits sticking out on the front panels. How is your 52-set installed in the Carrier No. 4?

David

[David Dunlop]

A quick update photo of the Carriers No. 4 after a good wash, brushing, air gun blow and vacuum. Quite a difference now from its first arrival as per the first photo in Post 218.

David

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

A quick update photo of the Carriers No. 4 after a good wash, brushing, air gun blow and vacuum. Quite a difference now from its first arrival as per the first photo in Post 218.

David

Just asking….

Is the bed on the left what your wife insists you sleep on when you get too worked up on your project? My wife demanded one too...so just asking....

[Grant Bowker]

I think it looks like a mock-up of the Diefenbunker. Not the PM's office but some of the work spaces where a duty person would nap by the work, expected to spring to life as required. I know the feeling - expected to do that at work on occasion.