Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

The weather is still not great for yard chores, either too hot or just enough wind/rain to shut various projects down, so I was able to work on the Spare Parts Case and finished off the initial cleaning of all the metal hardware by completing this work on the bottom and front of the case this morning.

Good thing I had left the front until last. I had done this because cleaning the two latches is very fiddly work, but on this case, I discovered a layer of heavy tan yellow paint had been applied to the front and it covered all the metal hardware. I like getting the bulk of the old paint off the hardware by hand. It is time consuming, but saves a lot on wire wheels for the Dremel. Once the woodwork on the case has been sanded and repaired, where necessary, I can give all the metal parts a quick final clean with the small wire wheel and everything is ready for priming and painting a new Flat Olive Green top coat.

The Spare Parts Case is dimensionally larger than the Tool Box on all three axes, but carries an overall lighter load, being predominantly spare valves, fuses and light bulbs for the main 52-Set. Consequently, Canadian Marconi saved themselves some money by using the identical hardware items on both the Tool Box and Spare Parts Case: handles, latches, hinges and corner guards.


David

[David Dunlop]

The next thing I have to do on the Spare Parts Case is carefully sand down the lumpy runs of tan yellow paint on the inside lip of the case and lid. Fortunately, there are not many of them, I will also go over the edges of the lips, where necessary, to cover up the light green paint that found its way there.

It is important to get this done now and have enough time for the touch up paint work to hard cure as when it comes time to repaint the case, it is these two surfaces that the case will be resting on during painting and cure drying. So the sooner the work gets done, the better.

One other discovery at this point. I had assumed the KimPak padding in the Spare Parts Case was glued in place. However, the padding is in such great shape in this particular case I can easily see the small wire staples that were used about a half inch in around the perimeter of the padding to hold it in place.


David

[David Dunlop]

Another Stay Indoors day today, and a day off for me as well, so…’Bonus’!

I was able to sand down the lumpy paint runs along the edges of the lid and main body of the Spare Parts Box and give these edges a new coat of Flat Olive Drab. This is now the second wooden piece of the 52-Set Main Set for which the new paint has been an excellent match. It certainly does not hurt that these two cases/boxes have been closed for the vast majority of the last 80 years.

In this instance, the top surface of the wooden partition inside the case had no marks on it whatsoever. Note how well that factory paint matches the new paint.

Once the new paint has hard cured, in about 10 days, I will be able to close the case up without worry the newly painted surfaces might stick to each other, and proceed with the restoration process.


David

[David Dunlop]

Has anyone ever seen one of these publications? It was published by the Canadian Marconi Company and bears their Part Number, CMC 119-020.

Reference to this list shows up in the Master Parts List for the 52-Set, but nothing about it shows up at all in the Operator's Manual. I am assuming each 52-Set was issued with one so the printing run must have been on the order of 5,000 copies or so. I have no idea if the contents are identical the the list of items at the back of the Operators Manual for the Vehicle and Ground Installation, or perhaps just references just CMC Part Numbers for ordering directly from Canadian Marconi.

A bit of a mystery at this point.


David

[Bob Carriere]

....if you really want to keep your beer cold!!!!!!

You are a man of many talents.........

Went down to 7C last night..... the only cool place right now is inside the insulated barn..... and bug free!!!!!

Bob C

[David Dunlop]

I have been excited to be making some progress on the restoration of the Spare Parts Case for my 52-Set, but suddenly realized this morning I need to pause for a moment and focus on the Kimpak padding installed in this case. It is near minty, but I lost sight of the fact my other Spare Parts Case is in rough shape. The Kimpak padding is all still there, but pulled away in a few places and I need to pay attention to how it was installed, if I hope to make any decent attempt as restoring the second case. The best starting point for this documentation was to determine how this padding was mounted inside the Spare Parts Case.

My first thought when I obtained the first, rough shape Spare Parts Case several years ago was that is was simply glued in place and the parts of the padding that had come loose over the years were simply the result of the water damage the case encountered overall: the old ‘animal glues’ issue, end of story. Having now carefully vacuumed the dust and dirt out of this Spare Parts Case with a soft bristle brush attachment, I discovered the Kimpak padding was actually stapled in place. I am not sure what the actual name/type of staple is, or what the staple gun actually looks like, but it must have been an autofeed type of gun and probably air driven.

These two photos show the heads of two of the staples in the Kimpak padding fitted to the inside of the lid of the Spare Parts Case. The staple heads are roughly centre in each photo. My best measuring efforts suggest an inner spacing of the staple of 1/8-inch and an outside length of the head at 5/32-inch. I have no idea how long they are, but may see if one is available for extraction from the rough case to find out.

There is definitely a copper look to these staples, but they are magnetic, so I wonder if the staples were copper plated as a form of lube as they were driven from the staple gun to reduce wear on the gun itself? Determining the optimum air pressure for the staple gun must have been interesting. The wood is Pine, so not hard and the padding is just a fancy paper product, so you would want the head to nicely hold the padding in place but not punch right through it.

It is interesting how 80 years on from the manufacture of the 52-Set and all its components, we can struggle figuring out how they did it all, largely by hand and brain power, yet 80 years ago, all these manufacturing skills and techniques were day to day common events.

More to follow on the Kimpak padding installation shortly.



David

[David Dunlop]

Some initial general observations about the Kimpak padding used inside this case. It is basically a long, flat, heavy-duty, brown paper pouch that has been filled with. A mat of what is basically an 80 year old version of cellulose fibre. Think blown attic insulation today. The brown paper itself has the Kimpak logo printed in blue in diagonal rows of three along its length and was probably waterproofed with some form of oil based product because the case has that old, oily smell to it when opened in spite of no trace of oil ever being spilled in it, and it never being designed to hold oily items. I also know that the prior owner of this case obtained it as a newly surplussed item back in the 1970’s and used it as intended, to store NOS radio valves in their factory boxes.

The pouch of the padding is formed by folding the paper and creating a longitudinal running seam down the middle of the back of the pad, sealing in the cellulose in the process. The finished width of the pad is 8 inches and it was probably supplied by Kimberley Clark to Canadian Marconi Company in rolls, cut to required sizes at one or more stations on the production line. All of the padding was installed after the cases were painted and probably just before the exterior stencils were applied to the front of the case. The lengths of the pieces of padding all seem to be cut just long enough to form a snug fit for the two cut ends up against the interior wood surfaces of the case. Perhaps to keep these cut ends from lifting and tearing. Some edges look like they may have been tucked down in place.

The two pads in the lid and the floor of the left side compartment could have been installed at any point in the padding installation process. However, in the main, right side compartment, there was a specific sequence for the installation. The Kimpak is only 8 inches wide. The depth of this compartment is 9-1/2 inches, so the padding around the sides is set 3/4-inch off the bottom of the case all the way around, and there is a corresponding 3/4-inch space above the side padding. My first thought was that a slightly undersized 3/4-inch thick board would just be dropped into the box and then the side padding stapled in place. But then you would never get the board out. So they must have used two small strips of 3/4-inch board, two or three inches wide, placed one at either end. The padding is stiff enough this would work. After stapling the side padding in place, the two space strips could easily be slid parallel to the long axis of the case and lifted out. The bottom pad would then be stapled in place.

The one piece side pad starts butted into in the left rear corner of the main compartment, against the partition panel. It then runs across the rear wall of the compartment and wraps around the right rear corner. As it wraps to the right side wall, there is a vertical fold facing to the rear wall to help make the padding fit snugly into the corner. The padding runs along the right side and wraps into this corner, again with a fold on the right side wall, pointing to the rear. The padding then runs along the front wall of the case and wraps around the left front corner snugly, and with no fold this time, and heads along the partition wall to butt up against the Kimpak on the back wall.

The bottom pad in the left compartment has only one staple in each corner to secure it in place.

The padding in the lid has 3 staples down each end, one half to one inch in from each end, and two more front and back, roughly equally spaced.

The bottom pad in the main right side compartment has three staples down each end and one in the middle, front and back.

The side pad has four staples top and bottom on each end, 1/4 to 1/2 inch from the edges. There are five staples top and bottom roughly evenly spaced, 1/4 to 1/2 inches from the edges.

The first two photos posted today show the 3/4-inch gap at the bottom of the side padding in the main compartment. The third photo show the cut ends fitting against the case panels. The fourth photo is the start point of the side padding in the left rear corner of the main compartment and the last photo is one of the rolled in corner with the vertical fold just visible.



David