Rotary Phone Cleanup On YouTube

[19and41]

I thought after seeing so many phones that the artsy craftsy folk have thrashed, it might be nice seeing someone trying to bring one back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tto-3nON_i8&ab_channel=RestorationEG

[LM Ericsson]

People in the comments section were speculating that they just threw mud on the phone to make the restoration look real. I was skeptical of this video myself; hardly any rust on the metal parts. You can even see the strokes of white paint on the shell.

[FABphones]

Screenshots from the link.

[TelePlay]

People in the comments section were speculating that they just threw mud on the phone to make the restoration look real. I was skeptical of this video myself; hardly any rust on the metal parts. You can even see the strokes of white paint on the shell.

I agree.

I have received phones that were submerged in water, likely the weeks long flood in New Orleans when hurricane Katrina went through, and there is not a spot on such a phone that is not covered with dried on dirt and some level of corrosion.

A phone submerged in mud has a surface that is filthy but uniform in deposition. This YT phone does look like the dirt was smeared on and allowed to dry.

The inside of the phone housing and base are clean. The housing has a paper electrical diagram? which was never wet and the metal base shows no corrosion inside or out. The base plate shines when the dial assembly is removed. When submerged in muddy water, that plate would have been covered with thick, dried on mud.

The back of the dial assembly is NOS clean when removed, the network is not imbedded with mud and the internal wiring is clean and bright.

The inside of the handset is clean but the cap holes are plugged, that is not natural to a flood condition.

And the after images show some sort of irregularity on the surface, the base is missing a rubber foot (easy to reproduce using an appropriately sized rubber tube stopper and then there is the very poorly created number card.

So, I also think this was a mud smeared phone needing nothing more than cosmetic cleaning. It was never buried in mud.

[TelePlay]

More images.

[19and41]

I was thinking it may have had mud applied as well, but I have also seen phones that had been in a dirty environment for long periods of both dust and dirt exposure that showed little contamination internally.  I thought I'd put it up anyway as a conversation starter.