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British Bomb Disposal 'Quilter-Key'


Waffenamt

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  • Major General

Here is a nice item acquired this week. Called a Quilter-key and was used by the British Bomb Disposal units during and after ww2 to unlock the locking rings on german UXB's.

This particular one not numbered to the original box,but you can understand that in the circumstances,spares were acquired from other units if bits were lost,broke or indeed destroyed if things went wrong...

Its an early numbered piece,so almost sure it would have been used during world war 2.  A happy collector i am!!

 

It works like a socket ratchet(only undoes though obviously!) The extension bar is present in the box also.

The locking ring adaptors are present and you can see the different depths needed to suit the deeper fuze pockets,for instance if used on a larger bomb case.

Number 257 on the box and two of the adaptor rings,262 on the actual key and 331 on ring number 3.

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  • Major General

And now to 'tackle' the 50 kg lurking in the collection room. The fuse is a standard impact fuze (Type 15),would not have been fitted with a booby trap as the fuze pocket was not deep enough to hold the long delay type (17,17A or 17B) plus the Zus40 booby trap...all good so far ;)

The fuze would have been discharged using a 'Crabtree' Discharger(not shown)

After unlocking the rings,then the fuze is removed and the gaine unscrewed and taken off....

 

The last picture shows 2 variants of adaptors the german armourer used to tighten up the locking rings.

As you can see,one of them still has the Luftwaffe serial numbers on.

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  • Major General

Im actually having to trace a missing bit. :(  The fuze gripper that goes through the centre of the key.

Ok,it still undoes the ring,but the gripper holds the fuze.

Just watched it in action on an episode of 'Danger UXB'

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  • Major General
40 minutes ago, Lenny said:

Absolutely fantastic... have to watch Danger UXB now... :D

 

34 minutes ago, Bill said:

Oooooh, you be careful now Wingy old boy...  :/

 

@Lenny  The key is used in the episode titled 'Dead Letter' in the series.

@Bill   Fear not old lad. The job already done for me back in '40:P

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  • 4 years later...

Hello Waff,

Where are you?...it's been a long time on here, anyway although it's late and I havent seen this before ( I hope it dosent piss anyone off on MCN that I am late in replying?) but a real super and fantastic item and great images. I have never seen one before but I did watch UXB on the TV.......Brilliant and Brave Heroes from WW2....!!!

Many Thanks for showing us..Best to you ...Desert Rat/ Ian

Edited by Desert Rat
correction to text
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Hello Waff,

The fuze gripper that goes through the centre of the key......I see you are looking for this....Let us know if you have any luck so far and maybe post an image on here of exactly what you want......in case one of us on MCN comes across it to buy for you.

Best to you and Good Luck in finding it.

Desert Rat/ Ian

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  • 1 month later...

That pin and Chain, Is this used to lock the Fuse in place when extracting the detonator, just a an idea

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • Major General
On 30/01/2021 at 19:21, Desert Rat said:

 

Hello Waff,

The fuze gripper that goes through the centre of the key......I see you are looking for this....Let us know if you have any luck so far and maybe post an image on here of exactly what you want......in case one of us on MCN comes across it to buy for you.

Best to you and Good Luck in finding it.

Desert Rat/ Ian

Found one buddy. :)

On 25/03/2021 at 22:36, Davejb said:

That pin and Chain, Is this used to lock the Fuse in place when extracting the detonator, just a an idea

Hi Dave,yes i assume so mate.

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