Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[James D Teel II]

Is the glue dry?

[David Dunlop]

Indeed it is James.

As you can see in the first photo I had posted, several pieces of the original factory paint came up with the felt when I removed it. I left it as is primarily because the locations of these patches, along with the silvery, slug like trails of where the original glue was applied, gave me a very good idea of where the original run of glue bead had been located. The size of the bead was a bit of a guess but I must have come pretty close to what was originally applied because only a small bit of glue oozed out in three small locations.

It was all dried and cured in about 10 minutes. I had initially thought of brushing the glue on but Debbie advised against that. her logic was that a bead would be thick enough to allow me to carefully adjust the felt pad into its correct, fine position for a few minutes and let me press it down firmly once in place with an old steam iron. She was correct. I got almost three minutes of play time with the felt pad, whereas a brushed on approach would have meant near instant, permanent sticking of the felt in whatever position it touched the floor of the case.


David

[David Dunlop]

A good day yesterday and this morning.

I was able to use the new brass wire wheels to final polish the Left Coil Case Mounting Plate and hardware, acid etch and rinse it all and get into the electroplating solution for a new coat of zinc. My 2-Amp 12 volt trickle charger was getting quite. workout with such a large piece, so after an hour, I switched up to my 10-Amp charger for another two hours last evening, rinsed the plate assembly off and let it dry overnight. Blew through one brass wire wheel getting it done but expected that, given the size of these plates. Great to be able to just pick up another wheel, swap it in and keep right on working.

This morning I was able to reinstall it on the case and now I am ready to repeat the process with the mounting plate assembly for the right side of the case.



David

[David Dunlop]

It took a little longer than I expected to get the Right Side Mounting Plate assembly zinc plated. I finally realized the zinc anode plate was very reduced in size from all the work it had been doing, and could not deliver the amount of zinc to the mounting plate at the cathode needed for a fast job. I ended up fitting three worn plate to the anode and modified the cathode assembly so the mounting plate was perpendicular in the container, parallel to the anode plate and as far away as possible from the anode.

Dry now and setting up for tomorrow.

The right side mounting plate is the one with the brass ground strap connecting the front screw assembly to the lower right front panel bracket, to properly ground the aluminum front panel plate of the coil assembly, so I am going to clean and plate the lower front left and right side front panel brackets tomorrow morning to get the grounding strap properly reinstalled and out of the way.



David

[David Dunlop]

First thing this morning, I started cleaning the lower left and right front panel mounting brackets and hardware and get them into the zinc plating bath. Once that was out of the way, I installed the Right Side Mounting Plate to the bottom of the coil case.

In the second photo here, you can clearly see the longer front 8-32 machine screw used at the front of the plate in order to fit the grounding strap. There is a depression in the countersunk ho;e here which gets filled by a flat washer that gets dropped down over the machine screw before the grounding strap is fitted. If that space is not levelled off, the brass grounding strap will get pulled down into the depression when its hardware is run home. Under the stress, the brass strap eventually fails and snaps. The one on this coil. did because no washer had been fitted, but the grounding strap on my parts coil was in perfect shape and had the missing washer.


David

[David Dunlop]

The installation of the grounding strap and lower right front panel bracket were pretty straight forward. The one thing to be wary of, however, is that over 80 years, the holes in the wooden case for the hardware have dried out and this results in slightly larger holes the hardware feels a bit sloppy in. I used a small square block of wood held against the face of each front panel bracket to keep the brackets square to the case at the hardware was tightened. this will ensure the holes in the brackets line up properly with the front panel hardware when that assembly gets reinstalled.


David

[David Dunlop]

The centre upper and lower front panel mounting brackets have now been cleaned, re-plated and reinstalled.

The last two for this part of the project are the upper left and right brackets and hopefully;;y I can get them done on the weekend.


David