Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

A good day yesterday and this morning.

I was able to use the new brass wire wheels to final polish the Left Coil Case Mounting Plate and hardware, acid etch and rinse it all and get into the electroplating solution for a new coat of zinc. My 2-Amp 12 volt trickle charger was getting quite. workout with such a large piece, so after an hour, I switched up to my 10-Amp charger for another two hours last evening, rinsed the plate assembly off and let it dry overnight. Blew through one brass wire wheel getting it done but expected that, given the size of these plates. Great to be able to just pick up another wheel, swap it in and keep right on working.

This morning I was able to reinstall it on the case and now I am ready to repeat the process with the mounting plate assembly for the right side of the case.



David

[David Dunlop]

It took a little longer than I expected to get the Right Side Mounting Plate assembly zinc plated. I finally realized the zinc anode plate was very reduced in size from all the work it had been doing, and could not deliver the amount of zinc to the mounting plate at the cathode needed for a fast job. I ended up fitting three worn plate to the anode and modified the cathode assembly so the mounting plate was perpendicular in the container, parallel to the anode plate and as far away as possible from the anode.

Dry now and setting up for tomorrow.

The right side mounting plate is the one with the brass ground strap connecting the front screw assembly to the lower right front panel bracket, to properly ground the aluminum front panel plate of the coil assembly, so I am going to clean and plate the lower front left and right side front panel brackets tomorrow morning to get the grounding strap properly reinstalled and out of the way.



David

[David Dunlop]

First thing this morning, I started cleaning the lower left and right front panel mounting brackets and hardware and get them into the zinc plating bath. Once that was out of the way, I installed the Right Side Mounting Plate to the bottom of the coil case.

In the second photo here, you can clearly see the longer front 8-32 machine screw used at the front of the plate in order to fit the grounding strap. There is a depression in the countersunk ho;e here which gets filled by a flat washer that gets dropped down over the machine screw before the grounding strap is fitted. If that space is not levelled off, the brass grounding strap will get pulled down into the depression when its hardware is run home. Under the stress, the brass strap eventually fails and snaps. The one on this coil. did because no washer had been fitted, but the grounding strap on my parts coil was in perfect shape and had the missing washer.


David

[David Dunlop]

The installation of the grounding strap and lower right front panel bracket were pretty straight forward. The one thing to be wary of, however, is that over 80 years, the holes in the wooden case for the hardware have dried out and this results in slightly larger holes the hardware feels a bit sloppy in. I used a small square block of wood held against the face of each front panel bracket to keep the brackets square to the case at the hardware was tightened. this will ensure the holes in the brackets line up properly with the front panel hardware when that assembly gets reinstalled.


David

[David Dunlop]

The centre upper and lower front panel mounting brackets have now been cleaned, re-plated and reinstalled.

The last two for this part of the project are the upper left and right brackets and hopefully;;y I can get them done on the weekend.


David

[James D Teel II]

Beautiful work as always.

[David Dunlop]

Thanks, James. I am happy I can still at least muddle along.

Today I got the last two front panel mounting brackets cleaned, zinc plated and reinstalled in the upper corners, so I am now finished with that bit, but still have a little new research to sort out, hopefully in the next week or so.

In the meantime, I plan to work on the two Aerial Input Terminals, located on the lower rear sides of the case. Both seemed OK when I disassembled and removed them last year, but it's time for a closer look.


David