Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

I was going to cover this off in Post #488 on this topic but realized the photo I had taken back then was not properly illuminated to show the necessary detail.

At first glance, if one were considering completely stripping the old paint from a Handles No. 72, the first and obvious fear would be how you would ever know or remember what coloured red and blue dots and marker lines went where. All four corners of the part look the same. The beauty of these external dial tuning drives used in the 52-Set, 19-Set and many other British and Commonwealth wireless sets is the designers used a standard, keyed assembly process for all the parts. They will only fit properly one way.

If you look at the centre opening of the Handles No. 72, you will see straight away it is shaped like the letter ‘D’, keyed in reality to fit only one way onto the machined brass drive head.

If you orient the Handles No. 72 in front of you on your work bench, so you can see the letter ‘D’ properly, you will find the four corners of the Handle automatically orient along the ‘x’ and ‘y’ grids of a graph. The x-axis, parallel to the front of you is the Red Flick Indicator Dots. The y-axis, pointing directly towards you is the Blue Flick Indicator Dots. Beside each dot is its corresponding coloured Marker Slot. These slots originally held an appropriately coloured Neutral Red or Blue luminous paint. These may be missing, faded or replaced with plain flat white paint at this point in time.

So if you keep this simple orientation trick in mind, it is very easy to strip down a Handles No. 72 and repaint it. I would use caution with any chemical strippers, however, as these handles are cast metal, possibly a zinc alloy.

David