Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[Bob Carriere]

Hi David

I would have concerns using any kind of air brush as it might lift the stencil ever so much.....

The stencils I have seen that were used repeatedly were made of cut out brass sheets and very rigid....... and they used a roller ( in Black) and the dabbing brush was a well worn caked short hair thing that had turned into a felt like glob of semi dried paint....... worked well on wooden crates going up North.

Crates had the lettering over painted white and reused.......

This was done in a wharehouse and in some cases the trucks were idling at the dock to be loaded.....

Your tool box is really well done........ not sure they would have been all done so neatly in a shipping department........ reminds me of all the highly visible spot welds done on CMP bodies..... if it was solid it got shipped.

Love to follow all your hard work!!!!

Cheers

[Jordan Baker]

See the following link for a few period photos of how markings could be applied.

http://www.questmasters.us/Restoration_Supplies.html

The 4 sections aerials reel looks to have been sprayed.

There is also what’s called rocker mount stamps. Once the stamp is made, the application goes very fast.

[Alex van de Wetering]

David,

Nicely done and thanks for sharing your experiences here!

I guess if you have trouble with the cardboard lifting from the surface due to the moisture from the paint or air flow from the paint gun...you could try thin plastic sheet or sticker material in stead. I presume the stencil should not have any trouble cutting this.

Originally Posted by Bob Carriere

Hi David
The stencils I have seen that were used repeatedly were made of cut out brass sheets and very rigid.......

I have a set of those....it has individual letters in brass with a small ridge along the edges, that allows you to, sort of, link multiple letters into words. Presemably mine are post-war Dutch or German army.


The website that Jordan posted gives some nice pictures of the different applying methods used in period.....and also shows why lettering on original items is not always properly centred, straight ....and sometimes with paint smudges. Something we try to avoid as restorers!
What I do always find annoying with these stencil suppliers is that they seem to spend no energy at all at getting the font right! This website even shows a comparison of first aid boxes and it clearly shows the text is the same, but the font is wrong.

If you are using pre-made original stencils, or a stencil machine like David is using, you'll find that the width of gaps in the material is usually equal, I mean the font is specifically designed for stencilling, avoiding narrow grooves where paint can't properly run through. Some of these custom stencil suppliers however use computer fonts which are designed for book print or even web-use, designed along different guidelines, for instance to make them easier to read. As most of these suppliers will sell you stencils cut in sticker material, which seems to work very good for applying markings on vehicles by the way......why not use the proper font in stead? The cutting plotter wouldn't mind!

[Bruce MacMillan]

I have a 1/2" set of brass stencils which work well. They don't tear or warp.
They are available in other sizes and I've seen some on the auction place.
I used an airbrush and stencils cleaned up with spirits (using enamel).

[David Dunlop]

After starting at the tool box for a few days, I decided to focus on the half dozen or so really bad characters for some careful touch up work and leave the rest as they ended up.

With that all done, I now feel a lot better about the over all look of this stencil. I think the biggest improvement is in the second line “ZA Number” where all the zeros are finally consistent in appearance. The same for the letters D, W, S and B.

As far as markings on this box go now, the only thing left to sort out is the size of the C-Broad Arrow Stamp on the right side of the lid from a surviving example in a photograph of a 52-Set wooden case and the one on my Aerial Reel, the colour of choice seems to have been black. The reel shows a 1/4-inch stamp but the wooden case could either be 1/4-inch or 1/2-inch. Time will tell I guess.

Thanks for all the posts on wartime military markings. Clearly quite a variety of methods were used. It boggles the mind really!


David

[David Dunlop]

General Motors of Canada was struggling to get the newly developed C15TA Armoured Truck delivered to the Canadian Army about the same time as Canadian Marconi was working on initial deliveries of the Wireless Set No. 52. There was no hope of getting an Installation Kit developed for the 52-Set into the C15TA, which was replacing the White Scout Car FFW, so the Canadian Army developed a set of Field Installation Instructions for fitting pairs of the 52-Set and the 19-Set HP into the C15TA from metal stocks available in workshops overseas. These instructions were developed early on in the 52-Set production run and it was surprising to notice that the Lift the Dot fasteners used across the top of the Curtains, Waterproof on the 52-Set were nickel plated, not Matt Black as I suspected they would be.

The first photo today shows these nickel plated fasteners clearly on the right half of the curtain, the one dead centre below the Coil, Aerial Tuning in particular. Somewhere, I have another photo showing quite a bit of reflection off all five of these fasteners but cannot find it at the moment. The price I pay for having several thousand photos scattered across three computers, two large memory sticks, a digital camera and two camera memory cards. Consolidation is ongoing but nowhere near complete.

In any event, the nickel plated hardware did not make much sense, and I wondered if the name change in production from Curtain, Waterproof to Covers, Waterproof might have been done when CMC realized the mistake in hardware and switched production to Matt black. I got in touch with known 52-Set owners in Canada to see if they had these canvas items and asked for photos of the front markings and hardware to see what might turn up. Only three survivors so far, all the early marked ‘Curtain’ issue. Two down in Southern Ontario both have nickel plated fasteners. What was really interesting, however, was a third original curtain showed up in Alberta with Matt Black fasteners. So it may turn out that if any Covers have survived, they should all be equipped with Matt black fasteners.

I will let you know what turns up.



David

[David Dunlop]

And the Matt black version.

David

[David Dunlop]

It could prove to be an interesting four days coming up.

I was giving the 52-Set a routine workup two nights ago, running the receiver for about 20 minutes with the Sender Heaters active. Then switched on the Netting to run the 300 Volt Dyno for 3 or four minutes. I then switch Netting off and switch the set from Reeceive to Send. This turns the 300 Volt Dyno back on with the 1200 Volt Dyno. I normally let this pairing run a couple of minutes and power fully off. Done this several times a week for nearly three months.

This time...not 5 seconds from switching to Send, I could smell burnt varnish/wax coming from the Sender Blower Door so switched off immediately. So this weekend the Sender comes out of the Carriers No. 4 again for a close inspection.

David