Belgian Phone - Polish or Leave?

[twocvbloke]

From my days of vacuum collecting, my Kirby vacs HAD to be polished, they just didn't look nice with a "patina'd" look, a mirrored polish always makes something with nice curves and design aesthetics look great... 

Granted Kirbys are made with Aluminium rather than Copper, but still, a mirrored shine just, well, shines!! 

[Doug Rose]

Daniel....that is amazing!.....Doug

     http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=20700.msg211768#msg211768

[RB]

So many options...
i guess the only real solution, is to get two of them,
one shined, one patina.
Side by side like sisters.

[andy1702]

Sounds like it shouldn't be shiny or have a patina. To be original it seems that it should be painted plain black.

I have a fairly scruffy black one with those after-market decals. Much as I like them, I also like originality, so mine will probably go plain blacl when it fially gets restored.

One word of warning about these... There were lots of internal variations (at least 5 or 6 totally different layouts over the years) and when someone refurbished tons of thema nd added those decals etc, they also mixed bits up. My base plate had a helpful wiring diagram that didn't bear any relation to the connections inside the phone. Luckily I eventually found some other diagrams online and took my best guess at which one might be right. It's now working and a very nice phone. Damned heavy though!

[FABphones]

Here it is finished.  'Shiny Patina'.

The method for this was a steady and fairly lengthy rub down with Novus 2 on a lint free cloth. I didn't get the mini buffing tool out as I quite enjoyed doing this by hand. Had to decide when to stop but could have carried on...    The handset received my 3 day beauty oil treatment and has come up quite well.

I took it outside to get some light on it for the photos, a bit dark inside.

[FABphones]

And here, before and after pics side by side, the pics above show the shine better, as it looks shinier in real life with a depth to it, almost like it has been lacquered.    I think I have left enough character in it.

[skyrider]

Looks great very nice job. I've had mine for over 10 years, maybe someday I'll polish it. Enjoy seeing your phones.



Bill

[Pourme]

Very nice...you did a fantastic job!

Benny

[RB]

I like those small footprint phones.
very nicely done!

[HarrySmith]

Nice!

[Key2871]

It came out well, nice work.

[oldguy]

Beautiful, nice work.

[Jim Stettler]

They offered them in copper. In the mid 90's a local furniture store had over 150 copper telephones. Most were this model. I think they were asking around $150.00 each. I could never get them to cut me a deal on 1.
JMO,
Jim S.

The other copper phones at the furniture store were  this model or very similar to this model. ISTR he said there were about 30 of these .

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=19900.msg203907#msg203907

I was having trouble saving the photo for posting to this topic

Jim S.

[Doug Rose]

Copper is meant to be shined! It will look great with a polished Brass finger wheel. JMHO.....Doug

well...it sure looks shiny to me!! Real nice job....Doug

[Jim Stettler]

Here is a brass one.

Jim S.