Interesting date on WE 564 today

[ESalter]

I've had a pair of 564s set aside for at least 5 years now.  One of them is a pretty nice one dated 1959, but it had a cut off cord.  I had another dated 1962 with a good cord but bad housing.  My plan was always to cannibalize them together to make a good one.  Well, I dug them out today to do that as well as turn the final product into the equivalent of a 566 which will work with our 755A crossbar PBX.  The main difference is wiring, but I believe the hold button released a depressed line key on the downstroke of the button instead of on the upstroke like normal 564s.  I took the mechanism apart and was able to add a thin metal plate around the pin by the hold button to make the button strip function exactly the way I wanted.

Anyway, I've had these phones set aside for a long time and finally decided today(9-21-16) to start working on them.  The 1959 phone(the good one of the two) is 100% dates matching, including the transmitter and receiver.  I dont know that I've ever seen one that matched to the day like this.  I thought it was a funny coincidence that the date stamps matched today's date, as well as eachother.

--Eric

[podor]

Looking forward to seeing this come together. I haven't seen many matching ones either. With "commercial" use, they probably went back to be refurbished several more times than a home use phone.

I'm familiar with the way hold works on 1A2, how does the PBX differ to have the hold button release the line when depressed vs when it's released?

[ESalter]

To be quite honest, I don't understand why they work this way.  The sets for the PBX only have one set of tip and ring going to the phone, along with a bunch of A-leads to select the trunk or intercom.  Logic says you would need to close the hold contact before opening the A-lead telling the PBX what line you have selected.  The regular setup on a 1A2 keystrip would do that, so I don't know why the keystrips on these phones worked the way they did.  I guess I should say I don't actually have a 566, nor have I handled one, so I don't know for *sure* that the hold button releases on the downstroke like this.  I'm basing this information on a 464 vs. a 466 which I do have examples of both. 

If anyone has one of the 566 variants and would be willing to chime in with some info, I would be very interested to hear how the hold button operates, as well as see a couple photos of the keystrip mechanism and terminal board.

---Eric

[jsowers]

The best 57th birthday present you can give that 9-59 564 is a cord transplant. Sometimes it does seem like there's a higher power at work, doesn't it? Today of all days you decided to work on that phone. It's almost as spooky as imagining most of the previous owners of our phones are now dead.

Just this morning on TV I saw a round button keyset at work, with three lights lit and everything, on The Donna Reed Show. They even had a closeup of the buttons and lights. Donna volunteered to be her husband's receptionist at the doctor's office and she had to answer the phone, which she didn't do too well. She managed to cut the first person off when she had two calls at once.

Also, it's great you have a use for those keysets once they're fixed up. I remember the days when they were in stores and offices and schools and they were real workhorses. My mom had one in her office and I loved to watch the lights go on and off.

[ESalter]

I really like the early key sets.  I really want to find a colored round button key set one of these days.  I'm considering "making" an Ivory one out of a square button housing at some point.  Like you said, it's very neat to see them hooked up and working the way they're supposed to.  We have several key systems up and working that we've always had the key phones hooked up to.  I'm working on a plan to reorganize/replace some of it to end up with a bigger key system that has enough trunks to fill up a Call Director.  Eventually I'll get it done.

But here is the progress on the 566.  I got the cord replaced the other day.  I removed the amphenol connector off the end and added the spades and strain relief.  I trimmed off the extra conductors so it appears like a 16 conductor cord on each end.  I had several 44A blocks and a cover that fit a group of 3 of them, but I didn't have one of the wood blocks to mount the blocks on.  I had some plywood the right thickness, so I decided to make one.  It isn't perfect by any means, but it looks decent and will work fine until I get another real one.  The most difficult part was the paint.  I mixed together ACE gloss black, leather brown, and Krylon safety red(all enamel) to come up with the color I wanted and then air brushed it on the board and cover. 

I posted photos of the base(I repaired the rust around the feet) in this thread:

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=16786

The last photo shows my progress as of today.  All I have left to do is clean up and reinstall the handset.  After that I'm going to hook it up to the 755 and try it out!

---Eric

[ESalter]

Annnd, it works!  I took a video of the 755A today using this phone and our halfway new 466.  I'll see about getting it uploaded somewhere and posting a link on here.

---Eric

[ESalter]

Here is a link to the video I took yesterday.  It shows the phones as well as the switching, so I figured I would just post the link on this thread since this is the most recent place I mentioned it.  Let me know what you guys think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kPVZttaqUM

---Eric

[podor]

Great video! Thanks for sharing.