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Now the Story Can be Told - 1949 WECo 500 Set

Started by Dan/Panther, March 20, 2010, 11:08:11 PM

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gpo706

Quote from: Jim S. on April 04, 2010, 09:44:24 PM

I suspect it was your post. I only recall seeing 1 posting on the subject. Paul's site is the best location for this info. He already has many pages on field trial and pre-production sets. Plus since I have his site on my desktop It will make it easy for me to find.
JMO,
Jim
BTW aren't you in C*net, if so contact Kyle ,  aka Bellsystem property

I have no idea what C*net is Jim, taxing my brain enough trying to figure out my PBX!
"now this should take five minutes, where's me screwdriver went now..?"

rp2813

I just noticed something interesting on Paul F.'s site that others may want to check out and chime in.  Maybe it's just me, but . . .

The photos in the section on the model 500's development timeline include one of a trial phone with the O/Z lettering, and an early production model from 1949 with the curved "OPERATOR" lettering. 

Take a close look at the fingerwheel on the production model.  It's not reflective like the number card cover or the bezel.  I shined a lamp at the front of my 10/50 and the fingerwheel did reflect, but it could be something with the angle, although I couldn't reproduce the very dull look I'm seeing in the subject photo.  I'm wondering if this "production" model's fingerwheel might be made of the same material as the broken one that came with D/P's trial set.


Ralph

Dan/Panther

Ralph;
It is eerily similar, but as Paul has mentioned we simply can not categorize all  production phones based on one example.
Like you said even though it is similar it could be camera angle, or something as simple as a different batch of paint. I just wish we had a better paper trail.
I've attached a photo of my finger wheel.
If you notice the Singing wires photo of the Z dial, the finger wheel is the blackest part of that phone.
D/P

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

Dan/Panther

#528
Here are 4 photos I thought might be of interest.
#1- Western Electric Buildings B & C circa 1899.
#2- Western Electric Buildings A & D under construction circa 1900.
#3- Murray Hill Drafting Department Circa 1949, Notice No Cad programs, no calculators.
#4- A group of draftsmen discussing Pre-Production 500 model. Guy in the back, says; "Here are my detailed drawing for the pre-Production sets, Notice I've carefully numbered and dated all parts for future identification."
The guy on the far left says; "No No, that's totally unnecessary, no one is going to care what these parts are, or when they were made, just a waste of man power to mark them, Remove those numbers etc. and resubmit the drawing to me for final approval"

D/P

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

Dan/Panther

I was going to clean up the shell mounting screws, when I noticed one was bent.
I wonder if that indicates that when someone attempted to remove the shell, the screw wasn't out all of the way, and they just ripped it off ?
D/P

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

Jim Stettler

Quote from: Dan/Panther on April 05, 2010, 09:45:21 PM
I was going to clean up the shell mounting screws, when I noticed one was bent.
I wonder if that indicates that when someone attempted to remove the shell, the screw wasn't out all of the way, and they just ripped it off ?
D/P

I think they droped the phone, bent the screw and broke 1 or both housing screw bosses. Since they still liked using a rotary phone they "fixed" it with duct tape.
JMO,
Jim
You live, You learn,
You die, you forget it all.

McHeath

Good theory, it does seem to have been dropped at some point as the broken fingerwheel and bent screw hint at. 

paul-f

Quote from: rp2813 on April 05, 2010, 07:36:43 PM
I just noticed something interesting on Paul F.'s site that others may want to check out and chime in.  Maybe it's just me, but . . .

The photos in the section on the model 500's development timeline include one of a trial phone with the O/Z lettering, and an early production model from 1949 with the curved "OPERATOR" lettering. 

Take a close look at the fingerwheel on the production model.  It's not reflective like the number card cover or the bezel.  I shined a lamp at the front of my 10/50 and the fingerwheel did reflect, but it could be something with the angle, although I couldn't reproduce the very dull look I'm seeing in the subject photo.  I'm wondering if this "production" model's fingerwheel might be made of the same material as the broken one that came with D/P's trial set.


The 1949 set photo is "representative" of what the 49 set probably looks like, until we find photos of a real 1949 set.  (It most likely looks exactly like the early 1950 sets.)  At least the dial is accureate.  It's the 10/49 dial I posted photos of in this thread.  The fingerwheel is definitely metal.

Thanks for the comment.  I've revised the photo captions.
Visit: paul-f.com         WE  500  Design_Line

.

Jim Stettler

#533
Maybe Dan's broken finger wheel was the deciding factor to go metal ;D
----------------------------------------------
I haven't  had a chance to ponder  "Paul's Points to Ponder" yet.
Something I did notice was the fact that the phones were all dated. That is worth pondering.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I did come across a referance that the new sets were mentioned in the 1949 annual report. I haven't tried finding that report yet.
The annual report may of been written by the folks in marketing and may not provide "solid" info.

The 2 main reports we have been discussing were written by and for engineers. Engineers tend to be specific and precise.
Marketing guys aren't

Jim
You live, You learn,
You die, you forget it all.

dencins

Quote from: Jim S. on April 06, 2010, 12:29:04 AM

The annual report may of been writte by the folks in marketing and may not provide "solid" info.

The 2 main reports we have been discussing were written by and for engineers. Engineers tend to be specific and precise.
Marketing guys aren't

Jim
Jim

A number of years ago we were getting ready to introduce a new product.  As we approached the launch date, I was given a product description cut out from an advertisement.  After reading it, I told engineering we were going to have a problem because someone was introducing a product superior to ours with more features. 

I later found out the product description was a marketing ad by our company about the product we were about to introduce.

Dennis

Jim Stettler

Dennis,
That's the kinda stuff I am talking about.
The Engineers make  distinct points reffering between  pre-production sets, and early production sets.
Jim
You live, You learn,
You die, you forget it all.

Jim Stettler

Paul,
Is the label on the 11/49 set a paper label or is painted on?
Jim
You live, You learn,
You die, you forget it all.

Drew

Quote from: McHeath on April 05, 2010, 10:28:54 PM
Good theory, it does seem to have been dropped at some point as the broken fingerwheel and bent screw hint at. 

As was mentioned in the literature - many of the test phones were "thrown to the floor".  I would imagine this might have been done right before the tear down of the phone. Use them, take notes, then see what kind of abuse they can withstand, & take more notes. D/P, yours could very well be the only substantially complete field set.

To repeat - my wife's grandfather worked at Murray Hills in the 1940's and it's his son who today feels that Bell Labs would rarely leave a test phone intact, which surely is why these simply don't exist today. The more one looks at the history of prototypes and field test models, the more it seems that they are rare, even unique. Yours may be the only one we see for many years, or ever.


My two cents on the shell & handset - I think having this phone look as close as possible to what it looked like in '48 or 49 is the way to go...the shell can be propped open to reveal the inside.

Dan/Panther

Having personally been on the inside of a General Motors plant that did substantial
prototyping in the Era of the EV-1 Electric car, we had several of the Chevettes in our Anaheim warehouse in various stages of conversion to electirc vehicles, John Dunham the head engineer on the project, had a satellite office hidden so to speak in our warehouse. When he finally moved his operation back to his home plant, we were ordered to destroy, and dispose of all of the Chevettes and parts. We had 15 Brand new Chevette motors wrapped in shrink wrap on palets in racks. Taken down and smashed with sledge hammers, and put in large bins for recylcing. Several employess had Chevettes, and we were firmly told not to salvage any parts. The Bodies and contents were Hammered, and towed away to who knows where. Same thing with updated or obsolete equipment. I've seen no less than 10 Hobart Tig welder units, used in line production, in working condition, smashed into oblivion, and thrown in dumpsters.
THE REASON... GM simply could not take the risk, of someone getting injured on items, or parts traced back to GM, it had nothing to do with the secrecy, or taxes.

D/P

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

Dan/Panther

Drew;
Does your Wifes Dad have any paperwork or memorabilia laying around in an old box somewhere. My Dad passed away 20 years ago, and I still run across old papers periodically. (No pun intended, Old Papers Periodically, Get it ).

I'm also leaning towards your thoughts as well, on how to present the phone.

A question to everyone, if that is how displaying the phone ends up, what about the markings on replacement handset, shell, elements etc.
Should they be removed, or left intact.

D/P

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