Hole repair in AE Hotel phone receiver.

[Greg G.]

The good news is it's fixed, but cosmetically it didn't blend very well. I used Magic-Sculpt resin and hardener to repair the hole with. This stuff works like clay, you mix equal amounts of resin and hardener and add a little water nuke it for 2 or 3 seconds to make it pliable (only if needed), then mold it into the hole or crack and let it dry. You can also add pigment to it to get the color you want, which I did, black in this case.

It looked perfect when I first applied it, but for some reason when I sanded it down after it dried, I got a "marbling" or "swirl" look. I'm really not sure why it did that. On the surface it looked fine. Fortunately, it turned out ok in spite of the fact that I wasn't supposed to mix it with water.  (See update note below). Only thing I can think of is I may not have mixed it well enough.

Nonetheless, it's only cosmetic, the repair is solid.  The down side is now I'll have to paint it.  If I try to spot paint the repair, it will still be noticeable, so I may have to paint the whole thing, which I don't really like doing to bakelite unless absolutely necessary.

I used part of a package bubble to make a form for the inside of the hole, and stuffed some rolled up paper towels inside to keep it in place. That worked fine.

Update note:  When I was talking to the Tap Plastics expert after I did the repair, she said do NOT add water to the mix (that was why I got the swirl look), just nuke it in the microwave for just a few seconds if it needs to be made more pliable.

[Greg G.]

More pics.  The first pic is just after I applied the putty.  It only looked slightly lighter when dry, but it was still black.  The second picture is what I encountered after I sanded off the excess.  The third picture is of the inside of the repair.

[LarryInMichigan]

You could try rubbing some black shoe polish into the patched area.  It should make it stand out less.

Larry

[Greg G.]

I tried the shoe polish, didn't have much impact.  I spot painted it.  It's not invisible, but it was a big hole, I'm happy with it.  This is my first attempt at a repair like this, practice will make perfect.

[Doug Rose]

Greg...great job.....I had to open the picture and zoom in until I could find the reapir and it was hardly noticable.  it sure looks good to me.....Doug

[Greg G.]

Greg...great job.....I had to open the picture and zoom in until I could find the reapir and it was hardly noticable.  it sure looks good to me.....Doug

Thanks.  The hard part was working with the paint.  I only had semi-gloss in rattle-can form to use.  After polishing it, maybe I should have used gloss, I didn't think it would get that shiny.  I didn't spray it directly on the receiver, I sprayed it on an art brush and brushed it on.  Problem with that was if I sprayed too little on the brush, it dried quickly and didn't spread too well, but if I saturated the brush, it would run.  It took a few tries of letting it dry a bit, sanding it off and doing over.  I was going for an entirely smooth and invisible repair, but that's going to take more practice.