Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

A quick shift in focus to an earlier, related topic.

Jordan Baker sent me the attached photo of a pair of 52-Set Tool Boxes currently for sale on FB Market Place. $50.00 each, or the pair for $75.00.

The interesting thing about them is they still have most of their original factory Flat Olive Green paint and original stencils. These two boxes bring the total number of current survivors I am aware of to five in all. Four in Canada, including mine, and one in the UK. Three in Canada are still original externally, as is the one in the UK, whereas mine had gone NATO.

For the people interested in the 52-Set, the Tool Box seems to be the more difficult accessory to find, compared to the other two wooden cases. The prevalent thought for this phenomenon seems to be that at some point after the war and before the conversion to NATO Standard Paint in the Canadian Army, somebody in the Supply System realized the tools contained within this particular box for the 52-Set were nothing more than standard hand tools already held in supply under their own stock numbers. So the story goes these tool boxes were stripped of their tools which went back into the supply system under their individual stock numbers and the empty boxes were ‘destroyed, burned, or buried’, depending on which version of the information you encounter. The only survivors were tool boxes that had already been issued and which were in use. Being in use, they all got the NATO treatment paint-wise.

The fact three tool boxes have now turned up in Canada with original paintwork suggests the prevailing story is not entirely true and more documentation on the matter may eventually turn up clarifying it all.

It would make sense if you had a large number of fully equipped tool boxes sitting in a depot unused to redistribute their contents, but it is probably unlikely the entire stock was written off. It would still have been prudent to keep a limited supply of complete tool boxes on hand to replace any that were lost from the ones then in service. Same goes for the boxes themselves. A number on empty boxes were probably retained in the inventory to replace damaged or lost ones in use. When the 52-Set was finally declared obsolete and disposed of, surviving boxes in the supply system were then sold off and it is these items showing up today.

Still nice to know, however, that 80 year old items for the 52-Set keep turning up from time to time.


David

[David Dunlop]

The factory ID stencils are now on the two Spare Parts cases and this step in the project is now done. The case I will be keeping is the one on the left in the first photo.

The mystery now will be trying to figure out the most logical way the staff at the factory packed these cases upon completion with the required items. The photos in the manual give some clue but a lot of decisions will be in the realm of ‘Best Guess’ I suspect.

The second photo is just the Tool Box and the Spare Parts Case sitting side by side. Probably been a while for either of them since that last happened.


David

[David Dunlop]

You may recall when I was working on the other two boxes/cases for the 52-Set, the presence of a tan/yellow paint on the front of these items kept popping up. Well this last case to be restored for the project, the Cases, Operating, Remote Receiver, should finally explain what was going on.

Subsequent to the original factory finishing of the three boxes/cases for the 52-Set by Canadian Marconi Company, this equipment went through several upgrades while in service with the Canadian Army, throughout the later 40’s and 1950’s. This typically involved a repaint in the new NATO green that had entered the system, and slight variations to the stencilling, which was still in white paint, but usually in different locations on the front panel of the box/case, and quite often included deletion of the CMC Part Number information.

Around 1960, when the new NATO Stock Number System conversion was in full swing, it appears that in order to completely remove all traces of any of the older stencil information, the quick way was to paint this old information completely over on the front panel with a thick coat of tan/yellow paint, and apply the new NATO Stock Number data in black paint.

So the first line on the stencil in this photo is the NATO Stock Number equivalent of the wartime VAOS Stock Number ZA/CAN 4729. I have no idea what the remaining information means. This would have been the item description in the old VAOS System, but what I see here, suggests that if one needs to know what this item actually is, you need to look that information up somewhere else.

The last line, hand written in black felt marker would have been written on the case when the 52-Set equipment was finally surplussed out of the supply system in the early 1970’s, in the Canadian Army.



David

[David Dunlop]

As part of the introduction to this case, I have added a couple of more basic photos today. The first is a quick look at the interior, showing the two wooden partition walls and the general layout of the inside of the case.

The large central section holds the Remote Receiver Supply, and at the very least, its Connectors, Plug, No. 1 which feeds the power to the Remote Receiver. The Leads, Battery No. 1 and Leads, Earth No. C3 may also fit in this section of the case.

The right hand section is lined with KimPak on all sides and holds the complement of spare valves for the Remote Receiver and Remote Supply, spare vibrator and fuses for the Remote Supply and the spare Bulbs, 12V “F” for the Remote Receiver.

The unpadded left hand section would hold the remaining items to support the operation of the Remote Receiver and I won’t even attempt a guess on how at the moment.

All of the factory original Flat Olive Drab paint is still present inside this case. The Contents List on the lid is near mint and there is no damage present on any of the KimPak padding. A couple of interesting notes, however. When this case was painted NATO Green at some point, the painter took the time to edge the top of the box, the rim of the lid and the top edges of the two partitions, there are a few small runs of this paint on some of the upper walls of the case that will have to be sanded and restored, when the time comes. Also notice how the tan/yellow coat of paint on the exterior front panel of the case has some small runs in the paint that accumulated along the front edges of the inner walls. This would indicate the case was placed on its back, front up, when given the coat of tan/yellow on the front and its new NATO Stock Number.

The only other thing of note at this point is the presence of a white stencilled number on the lower right side of the box, as per the second photo today. I have absolutely no idea what this number means. It does not follow either the old VAOS Stock Number System, or the NATO Stock Number System.


David

[David Dunlop]

Three more photos today to give a better idea of the interior layout of this case.

The interior of the left section is remarkably free of most signs of use, probably because nothing really heavy, or with sharp edges, was ever stored here.

The main, central section definitely shows signs of the Remote Supply being placed in it over the years. It is a very heavy item, with most of the weight to the back of it. Even if you place the supply at the front of this section, its main weight sits behind the handle on the top of the case. When you lift the case up, it pivots slightly to the rear and you can feel the supply slowly slide up against the back wall of the case. When you next remove the supply from the case, some of the fittings on the back of the supply scrape the lower part of the rear panel of the case. You can see these vertical lines in the photo. Fully packed, this case is going to be a handful.

The KimPak installation for the righthand section follows a similar pattern to that for the Case, Spare Parts. A 9-inch wide strip would first have been fitted to the lid and the bottom of this section. Stapling of the KimPak was done in the same fashion as discussed with the Case, Spare Parts. A 7-inch wide strip of KimPak was then fitted around the walls of this section. This strip, as in the Case, Spare Parts, is set 3/4-inch below the upper lip of the case. However, because this case is not as tall as the Case, Spare Parts, it only reaches to 1/4-inch from the wooden bottom of the case, which means it rests nicely on top of the bottom KimPak pad. The wall pad runs from the left rear corner of the section, along the back wall, up the right side wall, across the front to the partition wall and back along the partition wall to the left rear corner where it rests on top of the rear pad.



David

[David Dunlop]

The handle, hinge straps and corner caps for this case are all identical to those used on the other two boxes/cases forming part of the 52-Set Kits. The thickness of the wooden lid is also the same.

The sole difference in hardware is the two latch assemblies, which although similar in appearance, are larger and of a much more robust design. The first two photos show the standard latch which is 1-3/8 inches wide by 2-5/8 inches long. The second two photos are of the latch used on the Cases, Operating, Remote Receiver. These latches are 1-3/4 inches wide and 3-inches high. Notice the wider clasp and the upper rivet set are installed further down the sides of the bottom assembly. The other significant difference is evident when the clasps are open. The lip of the clasp has a heavy duty tab that engages a corresponding slot in the back of the throat of the catch on the lid. Useful considerations on the part of the designers at Canadian Marconi to ensure this case stays closed when the Remote Supply Unit ZE-12 is inside and the case is being carried over uneven ground. The ZE-12 is a compact size at 8.5 inches high by 10 inches wide by 8 inches deep and yet weighs in at 26 pounds.

I am not sure yet if these two styles of latches, were made by the same company, but I will try and report on that later as more information is uncovered.


David

[David Dunlop]

At first glance, the CONTENTS Label on the inside lid of this case, apart from size, looked the same as the one that survived under the lid of my Tool Box, but when I had a closer look, there was one noticeable difference. The label in the Tool Box was plain paper. The one in this case is plain paper that has been given a spray coat of lacquer/schellac/varnish before being glued to the lid. It is still paper thin, but the outer surface is shiney and the entire label is very, flat, smooth and stiff. I am wondering now if this was an upgrade Canadian Marconi Company implemented following feedback about these labels being easily damaged when these boxes/cases were in use.

The other nice find in this case was a two page (Legal Sized paper) postwar version of the Contents Label using the new NATO Stock Numbers for all the contents of the case, so at least some of the parts for the 52-Set can be cross-referenced between the original VAOS Numbers and the NATO System.

Clearly, CMC had a standard format for their CONTENTS Labels used with the 52-Set, the interesting thing, however, is that neither of my Spare Parts cases had such a label fitted anywhere inside of them. The logical reason for that would be the presence of the KimPak padding on the inside of this case and the only free space that was all wood, meant any label fitted there would be very hard to read and subject to damage with items being placed in, and removed from the case. A small CONTENTS Label, similar to the other two, just sitting in the case, would have been very easy to lose, so perhaps CMC got around that problem by issuing a larger format list (8.5” x 11” perhaps), folded in half and placed in the case, probably on the valves side.

If anyone has run across an original surviving CONTENTS List for the 52-Set Spare Parts Case, please let me know.



David