Got some "new" phones

[Maynard]

First post. I jumped right in to the vintage rotary phone arena after I saw the AE 40. I bought 2 on fleaBay. AMAZING coincidence...the number on the card of one phone is the same prefix as our home phone service! I have both in service. Each had a service issue when received, but I was able to diagnose and fix them with the help of the forum and the references. It was all wiring connections. I'm going to buy some new bottom gaskets from Gary and they'll look pretty good. I believe each is late production, having a stamp rather than a decal on the base plate.

I naturally have some questions I didn't see answered in the forum threads I found. One of the phones had a slow dial. I sprayed it lightly with a Radio Shack electronic cleaner and lubricant. I didn't see that method recommended anywhere, but if it didn't work, I was going to send it for service anyway. So, did I do something good or am I going to regret that later? I'm thinking it worked in this case, but wouldn't work for every situation.

One of the phones has what looks like shrink wrap around the line and handset cords at the points where they enter the holes. The other phone's cords have cracked covering at those points, exposing the wiring, and I want to do the same thing to them. It looks like they need it, since the holes are so much larger than the cords. What do you use and where do you get it? Should there be grommets?

The line cord of one of the phones is unusual to me. It's marked with an AE label, so I know it's theirs, but the wiring isn't the colors I expected. Rather than red, green, yellow, it's red, white, black. The part number, or all that remains of it on the worn label, is 600072. There may be a longer number, but part of the label is missing. On the line above the number is "OTYPE", and I can tell there was at least one other letter in front of that, as the rightmost part of it is visible, but not readable. Can you tell me what this is and if it's correct for the phones? If it's not, I want to replace it with a correct vintage cord or accurate replacement.

Is it kosher to repaint the metal parts? Would the original paint be lacquer? I wouldn't repaint parts if the condition of the Bakelite wouldn't complement the condition of the newly painted metal. Talking black here.

Thanks for your help. Down with digital!

[twocvbloke]

Down with digital!

The irony is, the rotary dial is technically a digital device, sending string of on-off pulses, and Binary digital is essentially that, On or Off...

Then they went and replaced it with an analogue setup (DTMF tones), and now we're back to digital in the form of VOIP...

[Maynard]

Maybe I should have just said down with push buttons.

Also, back to the phones, each had some black gauze on the inside of the body across the vents. Some of that's still there, some is missing, some is damaged. What to use to replace it?

Thanks.

[Jim Stettler]

The irony is, the rotary dial is technically a digital device, sending string of on-off pulses, and Binary digital is essentially that, On or Off...

Then they went and replaced it with an analogue setup (DTMF tones), and now we're back to digital in the form of VOIP...

Yes I know it is an old thread.
I realized about the binary aspect of a dial long ago.
I never gave analog tones any thought, That is a new and readily acceptable concept to me.
Thanks,
Jim