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Old 28th July 2010, 12:48   #1
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Guide: How to restore a WWII Hull Compass

I recently procured a Hull compass for my 1943 Ford GPW and I had to restore it to make it functional again. It’s a pretty simple device and I wanted to record the restoration process so that it may help someone in future.

At the first the Hull compass kit I got looked like this.




It contained the original box, instruction label, Hull compass and the bracket to host the compass vertically onto the Jeep.



The inside of the compass was not clean and had to be reopened and cleaned. You will definitely have to restore your Hull compass because considering its 50+ years of use the oil must have been leaked/dried out by now.

Step 1: Use a paper blade or anything suitable to gently lift open the compass from its bakelite section (outer cover). Please make sure you do this process very gently and be very careful so that you don’t crack or scratch the glass. Also note that you should not use anything magnetic around the bakelite section as it can disrupt its magnetic reading. There are two screws on the bakelite section that will help you adjust the compass reading when it’s functional again. The best way to adjust the screws is to use a 1 Rs coin.



Step: 2 Once you have removed the compass, the insides or components of the compass will look like this. It would consist of five parts:



1) The glass piece



2) Washer attached to the glass piece



3) Holder (cup)



4) Base plate (stopper)



5) Reader



Step 3: Make sure you have cleaned all the components and that they are oil or dirt free. There is a very good chance that you will have to replace the washer on the glass piece which you can do so by buying any of the washers available in the market and probably make a circle out of it.



Step 4: Once the components are nice and clean, drop the base plate (stopper) onto the holder (cup) and make sure they are air tight. If you notice that your base plate has rust or tiny holes, you can use Quick fix to do a quick touch up and cover all the leaks.



Step 5: Once you are comfortable with the base plate and are sure it won’t leak, then take it back out and not you will have to horizontally attach the reader to the base plate. Here comes the tricky part. Please note that the reader should not be straight parallel to the ground when it is attached to the base plate. It has to be slightly downwards in order to accommodate the glass piece. Originally the reader was welded to the base plate and I would recommend you do the same. I have tried using Quick fix but it does not seem to hold against oil very well. If you can’t solder it then try to use any of the industrial glue like J B Welds to fix the reader to the base plate.



Step 6
: Drop the base plate along with the reader back to the holder and once again make sure there is no air space between the base plate and holder. The below picture shows how the glass section has to be fixed to the base plate and reader.





Step 7:
Next pour some oil into the glass section and close it with the base plate-reader and holder (cup) as shown below: I suggest you use any of the available baby oil for this purpose.



Step 8: Once you are done with this, screw back the compass section back to it’s bakelite section (outer cover).



Step 9:
Please note the there are variations in the different type of brackets that available for the Hull compass.






Step 10: Attach back the bracket to the Hull compass and you are done !






Let me know if any of you guys needs have any doubts on any of the steps.


Rejo Jacob
Kerala
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Old 29th July 2010, 00:55   #2
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Ah! So you finally got yourself a Streamline!!
Good job with cleaning up and refilling too!!

Cheers
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Old 29th July 2010, 09:27   #3
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Compass

Enjoyed reading this!!!

Thanks
--Sree--
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Old 29th July 2010, 09:40   #4
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Good lesson....Thanks for sharing
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