Western Electric 396A 1915-1920? & dial maintenance instructions

[dsk]

Today I got this, and do not know anything about it except from what you see here:
dsk

[dsk]

One more pic:

[dsk]

Except for the dial, it is working.  When I get time, I will take it apart clean and oil it.  These old dials consists of a great number of parts, so I have to be careful.

Pretty nice for about $63 

dsk

[HarrySmith]

Very nice find! Even has the mother-in-law receiver!

My mistake that is the European type wood mounting box!

[poplar1]

I believe these were made at Western Electric's Hawthorne (Chicago) factory. Not for use in the USA (because the WE engineers didn't approve of handsets until the A1 handset mounting) but only for export to Europe.

[dsk]

That sounds reasonable, and the ringer (1000 ohms) has a bias spring, thet was not so common in Europe, but almost a must in the USA.
During the war WE made phones for the occupied BTMC.

dsk

[Ktownphoneco]

Arwin  ...  That's a very nice telephone you've acquired.         I'm not sure whether this BTMC dial repair document will help you with the dial cleaning and service you plan on doing with the dial on this telephone, but I'm attaching it to this reply for information purposes.

Jeff Lamb
     

[dsk]

Thank you Jeff, that dial manual was the right one! I have not adjusted anything yet, but so far I have just done the lubrication part, and wil try to test how the make break ratio looks, and if I have got an OK speed.

dsk

[dsk]

I have measured by using Audacity and calculated a little.
Even when it has a little bad vibration on dial return, I will not try to adjust anything more as long as it dials OK for my PAX.

As you see the pulses looks reasonable equal and the speed and ratio is a little outside what is standard.


dsk


PS You may hear it ring: https://soundcloud.com/d_s_k-2/ringing-at-25-hz-eb-drum-exchange 
DS

[TelePlay]

That is a very clean waveform. All those parts in that dial make for excellent break/make definition.

What did you come up with for PPS?

[dsk]

I have just got my wife's approval (local authority) of reasonable sound quality so it may be placed in our living room connected to my sxs PAX (drum selector designed around 1920, probably built in 1946) If I can I like to keep my phones in use.


dsk

[dsk]

Her is a scan of the dial center, looks professional and typical Norwegian: