Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

The last step in removing the Dial Lock assembly from the front of the Coil, Aerial Tuning No. 2 A is the removal of the SCREWS, Brass, Special ANF 10-32, 23/32=inch long No. C1 (ZA/CAN 4831). It is held in place with three ANC 2-56 x 3/8-inch, brass, CS slotted machine screws, with matching flat washers, Shakeproof washers and hex nuts on the back side of the panel.

Here is where the SCREWDRIVERS, Electricians, 3-inch, IF 117350, from the 52-Set Tool Box comes in real handy. It fits the countersunk screw heads perfectly.

The 3/16-inch socket from my ¼-Drive set fits the hex nuts and all three came free perfectly. All three hex nuts still had their Shakeproof washers under them but only one flat washer has been found. I will have to try and find some others to replace the missing ones now.

With the SCREWS, Brass, Special out of the way, the last two items to remove from the front panel were the Data Plate and the PLATES, Phenolic, Calibration ZA/CAN 4361 to have as open as possible a front panel for stripping and repainting.


David

[David Dunlop]

Have you even been working away on your favourite military restoration project and you stumble across something that makes you wish the item you are working on could talk and explain its history to you?

I hit one of those moments last night with this project quite by accident.

While moving the front panel of the Coil assembly across my work bench the angle of the task light struck the front of the reinforcing plate spot welded around the hole for the Dial Counter shaft.

I freely admit I know nothing about spot welding equipment. We have a couple at the auto dealership where I work and there my knowledge ends. In the first photo today, you can see the two spot weld dimples roughly either side of the Dial Counter shaft. The head on this particular machine clearly had rounded triangular electrodes and the work is very neat and clean. This front panel is off my spare parts Coil assembly.

Now take a look at the second photo of the front panel I am restoring. This was the one I was moving when it caught my eye. What on earth happened here? It is absolutely covered in spot welds! What possible story is being told here? Was it training day on the Production Line? Were they having equipment issues? Is this post-production, service life repairs?

Add into that a technical question that suddenly popped up as well.

Any spot welding work I have ever seen produces a dimple on both sides of the items being welded together as they become fused. As per the last photo today, neither of my Coil assembly front panels have any trace at all of spot welding on the backs of them. How is that accomplished, I now wonder…



David

[David Dunlop]

These two items arrived in the afternoon Post from England yesterday, right after our 'Not a Snow Storm' blew through town. They are now safely in the Tool Box.

It was really nice to finally see and handle the smaller of the two screwdrivers. It is a short, stocky item with a good feel to it and would have been the only tool suppled with the 52-Set that the Operators would have been able to use on the slotted 1/4-inch hex head bolts used to secure the three main set components in the Carriers No. 4 and the Remote Receiver in its Case. I had to try it out with one of these bolts I found last year and the head of this screwdriver snugs into the slots in the bolt heads perfectly.

Now that I finally have this screwdriver on hand, I will be able to test it on some of the other larger machine screws found within the 52-Set to determine what else it would have been used for by the Operators.


David

[David Dunlop]

Before I can start stripping off the paint from the Coil Assembly front panel, I need to determine exactly where the new water transfer decals have to be positioned. That forms the basis of where the two luminous paint pads have to be placed on top of the new panel paint, when that painting is completed.

There are two axes to determine the correct placement of the decals: where their vertical and horizontal centrelines need to be placed. I have two panels to study for this information, which was a big help.

The easiest piece of the puzzle turned out to be establishing the vertical line the horizontal centre points of the two decals must rest upon. Todays photo shows that line to be along the right edge of the ruler straight through the middle of the main holes for all the tuning components and this line can be easily established on the newly repainted front panel when the time comes.

Where the horizontal centrelines of the two decals must come to rest vertically on the front panel was a little more challenging. The larger AERIAL TUNING decal at the top was an easy one to pin down. On both front panels, the horizontal centrelines were exactly 3/8-inch up from the top edge of the rectangular cutout for the Counter Dial.

The lower LOCK decal was a challenge by comparison. On my spare parts panel, the horizontal centreline for this decal was only ¼-inch below the bottom edge of the SCREWS, Brass, Special. On the front panel in the top, that I am restoring, this distance was exactly 3/8-inch from the shadow of where the SCREWS, Brass, Special had been mounted. Problem was that this shadow would be gone once the panel was repainted so a more permanent reference point had to be found. When I looked at the lower two mounting holes for the SCREWS, Brass, Special and checked the distance from them to the centreline of the LOCK decal on the panel to be restored, this distance was exactly 14 mm. Using that measurement and with everything eventually remounted, I will get the required 3/8-inch distance from the Screws, Brass Special to the centreline of the LOCK decal.


David

[David Dunlop]

Well, I am at another major ‘Learning Curve’ point in this project, so physical work has ground to a halt while I sort out a new process related to the water transfer decals I need to create for the front panel of the Coils assembly.

The actual, correctly sized decals have been done for some time, the tricky bit has been creating the stencils needed to lay down the rectangular, luminous, paint pads the decals end up resting over. These pads of paint will consist of a thin layer of flat white paint to help reflect the glow from the luminous paint, which is put down on top of it, once the flat has cured. I anticipate more than one set of these stencils may be required and the more identical they are to each other the better. That degree of accuracy is beyond my abilities and the prime reason I invested in a new Cricut Maker cutting machine a year or so ago. It can cut multiple identical stencils far better than I could ever hope to by hand with blades and rulers.

The paint pads have to be slightly smaller than the limit of the black area of the decals and just larger than the central printing, to work properly and look as close to the wartime original decals. If you check the photo of the decals I have made in Post #1065 on Page 36 of this thread, you will get an idea of just how the paint pads and overlying decals have to line up. The finished process, if all goes well, should look just like the originals but will have been constructed in reverse order from the originals. With the originals, the luminous paint pads were put down directly on top of the decal film. Black paint was then applied to mask out the lettering, Then any top colours like red, blue or yellow were added before a clear coat of sealer and varnish was added. If you shine a light across the face of your 19-Set today, across the decals, you will see the small ridge of the paint pad under the black paint. Hopefully, my finished decals will have a similar ridge look, the only difference being my paint pad will be under the decal film, not on top of it.

So at this point in time, I have a set of paint pad stencils draw and saved in the correct size on my computer spreadsheet and they print properly. That file has been converted to a format the Cricut cutter can work with and they will download. Just a few more steps to sort out before I can do some test cutting. If all goes well, my brain is already thinking about another stencil I might be able to create for another part of the 52-Set Project down the road.

I shall keep you posted.



David

[David Dunlop]

A major breakthrough this morning in getting stencil software to load and cut correctly with my Cricut Maker software.

I had been working with PDF and PNG files and they all erred out with off the charts excess file sizes that made no sense to me. So, this morning I decided to make a test file and convert it to SVG format in my Logoist 4 Software and then export it to my iMac. This uploaded perfectly to the Cricut software and cut perfectly on 20 pound Bond paper.

Now that I finally know how to do it, creating workable stencils, to be cut from file folder manila sheet, for the paint decal pads I need can move forward once again.


David

[Barry Churcher]

David I have been waiting to see how you make out with your Cricut. I would like to get one for stencils for various projects. Already it sounds a little complicated for a pea brained non computer savvy person like me.

"make a test file and convert it to SVG format in my Logoist 4 Software and then export it to my iMac. This uploaded perfectly to the Cricut software".
Cheers
Barry