Stromberg Carlson 1243

[FABphones]

I must stop buying these 'rat phones'. In fact no more phones for me for a while, too many have come along at the same time, but a black metal Stromberg Carlson 1243 was another 'would like' on my list...

This one is in poor condition. If I had to guess I would say it had a strong sugary coffee split over it quite some years ago. The dial needs a total strip down. My guess is the sugary drink damaged the dial and the phone came out of service. I have started to remove it. Underneath the finger wheel much of the coffee is still in there - as we can see from what is left of it on the numberplate. The '0' is pretty thick with brown goo and the numberplate is stained brown.

Thanks to my tutor I am understanding dials more than I used too. Am just getting my head around stripping down an A.E. and  W.E.    .....and now this S.C. has turned up.

My plan (if it isn't too bad) is to tidy and shine this one up and accept any dings and flaking paint as its history.  Luckily the only ding I can find is on the dial. And the dial card holder is absent.

Inside the condition is as unfortunate as the outside...  ? ? ?

Photos:

[FABphones]

Dial photos:

[rdelius]

Missing ringer also. SC dials were not as good as WE or AE.

[FABphones]

This dial is probably in the worst condition than any I have come across. At the moment it begrudgingly turns and won't return willingly. Nothing so far has improved it, so I'll try get this apart a bit more and pop it into the Ultrasonic.

I'll look on here for any info I can find, but does anyone know how/where the spring is in this? I just need to check nothing is in danger of unwinding too readily as I delve a bit deeper.

Thanks for any info.

[dsk]

These are special, ant that network are telephone history by itselves.  It looks like your phone has been modified to work as an intercom and the dial has been modified to.  The shorting contacts are bent badly, but I hope it is repairable.  If you only are going to display it, that will be of less importance, and a piece of history too. 

dsk

[FABphones]

Thanks for the replies rd and dsk. If I come across a ringer I will replace it, but in the meantime it will be a display piece.

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Today I made a start  on the dial. My dial swotting must be paying off a bit as despite being unfamiliar with SC dials I actually had the urge to take this one apart. However, I held back after a bit of research included the words 'notoriously difficult'. Of more concern however were the words 'unwinding' and 'ping' so I instead worked carefully getting to know this dial, removing the outermost parts readying it to pop into the Ultrasonic cleaner.

Photos:

[FABphones]

Close up photos of dial reverse:

[countryman]

Good job so far! In a similar case I cleaned the "stripped" dial with automotive brake cleaner and compressed air (carefully). That went well.
Please report your experiences with ultrasonic cleaning the accessory parts!

[FABphones]

Thanks countryman .   Am thoroughly enjoying working with this method.

...In a similar case I cleaned the "stripped" dial with automotive brake cleaner and compressed air (carefully)....

I haven't heard of that technique. It sounds effective, but, as brake cleaner is a solvent designed to clean grease and oil as well as dirt, over time any residue left in the dial may also brake down the oil added to lubricate the dial. How did you remove the residue?

[countryman]

the brake cleaner evaporates quickly and without leaving any residue. The dial will be in the need of fresh oil after cleaning of course. But the new oil won't be affected by the solvent.
The regular brake cleaner won't react with metals or common plastic materials. I used contact cleaner for the electrical parts later to remove oxidation.

Edit: Only use brake cleaner or other solvents outside or in an well vented shop. The vapors are highly explosive!

[FABphones]

Last post for the day showing the results of the Ultrasonic Bath. 

For the Ultrasonic bath solution I would have liked to follow teleplay's recipe:

2 teaspoons Simple Green (pH  9.5 – 11.5)
1/2 teaspoon Ammonia Hydroxide (pH  about 11)
40 ounces (1.183L) of distilled water

Unfortunately Simple Green doesn't appear to be available in my stores, and reading the contents of the products I could find I wasn't sure if any would be suitable, so on this occasion I used a drop of washing up liquid in distilled water as the bath solution.

There were no ink markings on this dial in need of protection, in which instance they would have received a coating of Vaseline or Lanolin before the dial was placed into the solution.

I gave this dial three sessions of five minutes in the Ultrasonic. Between each session I moved the dial to agitate it in the hope of disturbing any small particles which may have become trapped (this is one of the reasons it is better to totally strip a dial for this process).

Before cleaning this dial I gave it a thorough blow through with compressed air, then contact cleaner, and removed the last of the grime remaining on the rim of the exterior - formerly I would have stopped there - job done, ready to oil. But checkout the colour of the water after only 15 minutes in the Ultrasonic. So dark you can only just see the dial is actually still in there. A few particles were floating on the surface of the water but the bigger surprise came when I emptied the tank and saw the grime at the bottom of it (tried to get a photo as best I could). A fair bit of debris was actually tipped out with the water too.

The next important part is to dry the dial thoroughly. Water can get trapped and cause corrosion (another reason it is better to totally strip the dial). I placed the dial in paper towelling, gently rotating it to dislodge any of the more obvious water droplets, then had the somewhat unconventional idea of using a hairdryer on a low setting (from a suitable distance) to get some warm air into those nooks and crannies. Compressed air would have worked nicely (better) too, but me being me I just wanted to try it....



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The dial has now been placed in a warm area to dry thoroughly prior to greasing/oiling.

[dsk]

Great, and the later pictures shows that is not damaged in that way I guessd when I saw the first pictures.

dsk

[FABphones]

After cleaning all parts with anti-bac wipes, T-Cut was applied to the metal phone shell. It took several applications to cut sufficiently and restore some shine to the paintwork. It was then polished with Black Turtle Wax Polish. Some chipping to paint on the edges (I will keep it with it's original paint for the moment, see how it looks on the shelf, but I may repaint it).

The handset was cleaned using 000 Wire Wool/Brasso, then polished.

The finger wheel and other dial parts which had been removed were cleaned and polished prior to reassembling.

The dial dried nicely overnight. However looking at it under glass I could see there were areas still in need of further cleaning, I did these by hand. After an additional blow through with compressed air the dial was oiled, greased and reassembled.

More information on this thread re dial oiling:
http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=7899.msg124966#msg124966

My conclusions on this dial cleaning method confirms much of what has been explained to me and will probably come as no surprise to the clever folk on here who can clean, repair (and then calibrate) dials...
...this procedure removes dial crud better than compressed air/contact cleaner, but there is no substitute for a full dial strip down. Even with the assistance of an Ultrasonic tank, some components will always respond better to cleaning individually by hand.

I'm still not happy with this SC dial ,  after a bit more research on this dial assembly I intend to come back to it and take it apart completely.

Before and after photos below. Thanks for reading. 

[HarrySmith]

As usual, nice work. Reminded me of 1 I had a while back. It's posted here under the "Notable Refurb"section.

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=11814.75

[Jack Ryan]

In a similar case I cleaned the "stripped" dial with automotive brake cleaner and compressed air (carefully). That went well.

What do you mean by "automotive brake cleaner"?

Some such solvents contain organochlorides which I would rather avoid. Others are hydrocarbon based but then you are back into more common solvents.

I would avoid water based ultrasonic cleaning fluids as well. It is very easy to rust some parts - especially springs - that way.

Jack