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Recently I wrote on platinum spark plugs. This is a repeat with the addition of local Tocumwal history which you might find interesting.

I well remember when avgas was high in tetraethyl lead and sparkplugs were cleaned at each 100 hourly service. We used a plug cleaner which blasted sand at the electrode and insulated cavity. This method was not suitable for plugs with platinum electrodes as it eroded them (the electrodes) rather rapidly.
So this is how we cleaned them, that is the lead that had built up in the cavity between the ceramic insulator and the steel plug body. We took a hacksaw blade, a worn one, and ground down one edge about 2 inches which then fitted well in this cavity and we physically levered out the lead build-up. No erosion to the electrodes. Maybe that may help?
I have not seen plugs with platinum electrodes since the mid 70’s but my son has just purchased a set. (Cessna aeroplane with a Continental engine) I don’t recall the price he paid but they were hellishly expensive. He says the engine idles well (better). I must ask him if there has been a small drop in fuel consumption. End chapter 1.

War is wasteful, we all know that. The aerodrome at Tocumwal was a war time construction with a substantial American input. Some 7,000 US servicemen were stationed here. (My old friend Johnny says one had to watch the local girls closely and not leave bicycles unattended). Fifty four Liberator as well as other aeroplanes were based here. The now old timers, young kids at the time, told me the engines mounts were cut with oxy and the engines fell to the ground and the platinum from the spark plugs being very valuable, was scavenged. The engines apparently returned to America and the fuselages boiled down to ingots. Not a single aeroplane was preserved. Platinum was valuable, history or preservation apparently not.