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Here's a new one on me.

Started by Dan/Panther, December 13, 2009, 05:56:01 PM

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Dan/Panther

I was taking my '59. W.E. 500 apart to clean it, when I noiticed the handset cord was white on the end. I assummed it was paint, and tried to wipe it off. Upon closer examination, it turns out the entire handset cord has been painted Black, and it will come off, but is very hard to remove. The handset cord is dated 69, Am I to assume that the cord has maintained the black paint for 30 years without showing wear ?
It does not appear to have been recently painted, as there are several layers of dirt in the inside of the handset coils. Anyone else run across this ?
D/P

The More People I meet, The More I Love, and MISS My Dog.  Dan Robinson

Phonesrfun

Dan:

It looks like the cord restraint was also painted at the same time.  I have a beige AE80 and the handset cord was also painted, beige over beige.  It is a slightly different color than the original.  I was also amazed that the paint had not significantly worn.  I noticed that some flaking occurred at the very end of the cord.

Perhaps these were done in refurbishing shops, but they must have used one heck of good paint, or process, or both.  What does seem equally amazing about yours is the apparent use of black paint over a white cord, without any signs of the white through the black color.

-Bill Geurts
-Bill G

McHeath

Weird eh?  I bet that the factory refurb shop did that, it's seems very Ma Bell like to reuse that cord that way.  And the quality of the paint is top notch, you really can't tell.

JorgeAmely

D/P:

I have one like that. It was part of an old handset I bought some time ago.

Whatever they used to paint them, I am sure it is illegal in CA now.

Jorge

Greg G.

I have a beige cord that was painted red:

The idea that a four-year degree is the only path to worthwhile knowledge is insane.
- Mike Row
e

Dan/Panther

#5
The method I use to stain white cords pink, won't run, but for ther life of me how do they get a black, or Red coating that doesn't run ?
You are right Jorge, I bet that cord flouresces under ultraviolet light.
D/P

The More People I meet, The More I Love, and MISS My Dog.  Dan Robinson

bingster

You can tell by the division between the new colors and old that they were dipped, so they were probably hung to cure and the excess probably just ran down the cord and dripped off the bottom.  The tenacity of that stuff, whatever it is, is just amazing.
= DARRIN =



Dan/Panther

The cords I've seen posted here, and mine are dated 60's, and 70's. I bet the guy that invented the stuff was whacked and doesn't remember how he did it.
D/P

The More People I meet, The More I Love, and MISS My Dog.  Dan Robinson

JorgeAmely

... and was not allowed to leave the country.
Jorge

jsowers

He probably inhaled too many paint fumes and got dain bramage.  ;D (get it?)

I have a brown 500 with painted parts that's a total mystery. White 60s line cord painted brown, brown 60s coil cord with tapered strain relief, light beige 70 housing painted brown, real brown soft plastic handset and receiver element from 9-55, handset caps of brown 68 hard plastic, and base and ringer also from 9-55. The dial is 7C-54 from 8-55 with a hard plastic dial face. It's like someone replaced all the plastics except the handset to a mahogany brown. On the bottom is "Property of Illinois Bell" and a red refurb date of 1-71. And it has an ivory older 283B plug.

It actually still presents very well, but it's so bogus. I don't think I paid more than $20 for it, just to see what it was. I attached some pictures of it. It's funny, the previous owner got some wall paint on the painted cord. I'm afraid if I take one layer off, it will remove it all.
Jonathan

bingster

I wonder if, somewhere along the line, a subscriber insisted on a brown phone.  Being so long after WE had discontinued the color, maybe they cobbled one together?  I have heard a report that in the 1930s they would paint a phone any custom color you wanted (for a price), so maybe they continued that practice later.
= DARRIN =



Dennis Markham

Interesting Jonathan, is it a real "original" Mahogany dial bezel?? ;) :)

Tonyrotary

I wonder what it really is that Ma Bell used to color those cords? I mean paint can't really be that flexible to endure a cord being repeated stretched without the paint peeling can it?

JorgeAmely

Tony:

I remember denting the family car in the 70's. The body shop repair person showed me a Dupont additive for paint to use it in flexible body parts. Back then, cars had those between the bumper and body parts.

Those don't flex as much as a cord, but I guess the "know how" has already been around for a while.

Jorge

McHeath

That brown phone is quite attractive, they did a good job at the refurb shop making it presentable. 

I know very little about paints, perhaps there was something in the paint in the old days that allowed it to flex more.  Modern paints do seem pretty finicky, not at all like the paints I recall using as a kid.