Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

I decided to continue through with the basic cleaning of the front panel this afternoon and also did the various knobs and bakelite fittings. A full clean of the panel will happen when I am finally able to schedule the Sender into the project later on.

To give you a better idea of how the various cleaners work that I was discussing earlier, I did some sample work on the top chassis area shown in the second photo.

I cleaned the top chassis frame all sides with just the Orange Crush and a medium toothbrush, wiping down with a cloth afterwards, Roughly front centre, there is a square steel plate with its plating in good condition. I cleaned that with the Orange Crush and toothbrush, followed by sone Remove All and the toothbrush and then wiped it down with a cloth. I then took a small amount of the Autosol on my fingertip and rubbed it on the the left half of the square plate and wiped it off with a cloth. Kind of makes the factory plating pop again after 70 or so years.

To the left of that plate, at the front chassis, you can just see an orange electrical sheath arcing over a bar. I initially thought that was a black wire until the grime started to wash off with the Orange Crush. I then discovered the bar this wire was looping over was actually a very robust brown, phenolic terminal strip running the full depth of the Sender, about 3/4-inch wide and 1/4-inch thick. I thought it was supporting four long, heavy duty caps at first, but as the second one in from the front started to clean up, realized it was four big resisters. Looks a lot different with the grime gone.

Finally, to the right side top sits the Band Selector Switch, its long shaft running full to the rear of the chassis. The shaft supports two massive ceramic terminal discs. A little Orange Crush and the toothbrush again, produced the comparison to the untouched ceramic terminal disc at the rear end of the shaft.

David