Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

For a few days now, I have been concerned about reinstalling the remaining two sets of hardware on the SOCKETS, Aerial in the upper right corner of the Sender front panel. These were the two sets of hardware that pass through the chassis frame rails, as well as the front panel, and both were missing their respective external tooth #32 lock washers. My suspicion is they were not reinstalled at the time of the 1960’s overhaul work because of the difficulty accessing behind the panel and chassis with any tools. One is working blind back there. Quite a testament, therefore, to the skills and efforts of the young women at Canadian Marconi, who met that challenge on a daily basis on the assembly line!

The recent re-lock down of the entire province and City of Winnipeg did not help matters as hardware supply shops are now shuttered.

It was not until yesterday that my brain was drawn back to the fact I have a spare 52-Set Receiver I have been slowly stripping down, most recently for available front panel hardware. Surely, it would have somewhere within it, some #32 machine screws and related hardware. A careful look indeed revealed a pair of countersunk screws holding the required washers, which were quickly retrieved and the screws reinstalled.

What better than to use not only 75+-year-old hardware of the correct type, but 52-Set hardware no less. I felt quite chuffed with myself when I put the remaining two sets of hardware back into the SOCKETS, Aerial install and reconnected its central terminal at the rear of the panel. Now all three electrical circuits disconnected during the Sender teardown, have been re-established.

Next project will be the cleaning and reinstallation of the upper left and right BRACKETS used to secure the Sender into the Carriers No. 4.


David

[David Dunlop]

An interesting day yesterday. I was zinc plating the two upper BRACKETS, Metal, Angle that help secure the Sender in the Carriers No. 4 and was having a heck of a time getting the two brackets spotlessly clean.

The inner angles of both brackets, along with the inner face of the single hole sides refused to plate until the fourth attempt, which followed grinding the offending surfaces with a small, fine grit, Dremel stone drum. Fourth time lucky and they plated merrily away and are now reinstalled on the Sender.

David

[David Dunlop]

I decided todays project would be simple, but important.

The five small screws and lock washers used to secure, and adjust, the upper ends of the PLATES, Stop No. 1 needed to be cleaned up and reinstalled.

Although their primary function is to allow the PLATES, Stop to be adjusted to correctly match the upper and lower limits of the tuning indicator dials with the actual frequency limits of the set, they are also critical for securing the upper parts of the Flick Drive Assemblies for each of the three tuning dials on the Sender. Without them in place, the Drive assemblies can flop around behind the panel a bit. Not a good thing.

You can see in the attached photo, compared to the one previously posted above, the five PLATES, Stop No. 1 on the Sender front panel are now back in their proper fixed orientation, not just hanging around on their lower rivets.

David

[David Dunlop]

I managed to get the bottom two PLATES cleaned and re-plated this morning.It went a lot better for some reason than the upper two, as I get an excellent, uniform plating with the first attempt this time.

One hardware set had to be replaced as it was a differing thread type than it should have been and the screw was a cheese head slotted/Robertson combination head that was definitely a replacement at some point in the Sender's history. Fortunately, I had backup hardware from the spare receiver.

The two lower PLATES were mounted this evening and I now have to give some thought on how to proceed with reinstalling some of the knobs and handles. A little bit more research required there as well, but slowly I am making some progress.

David

[David Dunlop]

I had to do some thinking before proceeding with the next step of reinstalling the two PA LOADING Tuning Knob assemblies. These consist or two main assemblies.

The first to go back on to the Sender is the PLATES, Metal, Dial Locking. This is an interesting little design that is nothing more than a tapered piece of sheet metal, split down the centre, with a large hole at the wide end and a split cone fitted to the narrow end. When in place on the front of the Sender, the large hole accepts the central brass core of the KNOBS Assembly used to turn the tuner it is fitted to. The small end of the PLATES, with the split cone, drops over a threaded pin and a burled nut screws down over the pin and split cone. As it does so, the two halves of the cone get pulled closer together. This in turn, steadily reduces the diameter of the large hole surrounding the brass core of the KNOBS until it locks it from any further turning.

The problem with the two PLATES assemblies on my Sender was the hostile environment they had been sitting in had eaten away a good portion of the original factory zinc plating, and the remainder had turned near black. If I went with a full re-plating of the zinc, these assemblies would have looked virtually unused and would not fit in well with the overall plan for the Sender front panel: a set that had been a working set, but well cared for in its service life.

I then remembered the Coil, Aerial Tuning for the 52-Set also uses this PLATES and KNOBS arrangement and had a look at it. It had the exact look I wanted. Lots of zinc plating still on the PLATES but wear patterns evident that created lighter and darker regions on the metal. I decided to try a quick, flash plating of these two parts rather than the usual one or two hour process. I had noticed on the other parts I had plated that after about 15 to 20 minutes, you could really notice the zinc starting to build up on the metal I was working with, while still seeing lighter and darker spots where the rate of plating was different. What I came up with was exactly what I was looking for and a very close match to the PLATES on the COILS, Aerial Tuning panel.

Next will be restoring the two KNOBS for the PA LOADING assemblies.

David

[David Dunlop]

I was able to clean and refurbish the KNOBS, Phenolic, Fluted with Crank for the 7 – 16 MC PA LOADING Dial last evening.

The fold out crank portion is all brass, and I suspect originally was in a black anodized finish. When looking at the central brass spring clip assembly that locks the crank in either its open, or closed, mode, I could see the remains of the black anodized finish on the underside of it. Over years of use and cleaning, this finish wars off and ends up being replaced with several layers of semi gloss, or gloss, black enamel paint, which invariably chips all over the place.

I went with cleaning all the remaining paint off the parts and redoing them in a semi gloss black enamel that blended in quite nicely with the black phenolic knob. I noticed this morning, one small run in the paint on the outer surface of the crank, but I should be able to buff than down in a couple of weeks, after the paint has fully cured.

Now that side is done, I will get going on the right hand assembly for the 1.75 – 8 MC PA LOADING Dial.

David

[David Dunlop]

Here are three photos of what the KNOBS, Phenolic, Fluted looked like prior to cleaning them up.

David