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Soft Plastic Red WE 500 4-55

Started by Craig T, February 26, 2011, 04:03:22 PM

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Craig T

My streak continues, two broken phones in a row! I guess I should have noticed when there was a chalk line drawn around the box while it was sitting on the counter at the Post Office!

Turns out that the phone had a corner crack prior to being sent, I am amazed that it did not sustain any more damage during shipping.

They must teach tiptoeing to Postal employees for situations like this.



JorgeAmely

It looks that your box was used by the Post Office to keep the truck from rolling down a slippery hill in your neighborhood.

Sorry for the bad delivery.
Jorge

HarrySmith

Very nice looking phone except for that crack which is not terrible, it should be easy to fix. Am I reading it right, the crack was there? Absolutely amazing no other damage was done, must have been well packed!
Harry Smith
ATCA 4434
TCI

"There is no try,
there is only
do or do not"

Dan

If the sellers or the USPS mark "fragile" on the outside, do they pay attention to this or is this for show only? I have had two broken delivered to me, both were the only ones marked not fragile.

I am sorry for your misfortune. That is an extremely early and rare coloured red 500.
"Imagine how weird telephones would look if our ears weren't so close to our mouths." - Steven Wright

Craig T

#4
Quote from: JorgeAmely on February 26, 2011, 04:43:40 PM
It looks that your box was used by the Post Office to keep the truck from rolling down a slippery hill in your neighborhood.

Sorry for the bad delivery.


Jorge, I was crushed too! :) It is coming along nicely as we speak. This was a moldy oldy though!

Harry, I am not practiced in crack repair, so I will need to mess with a beater phone first before trying. I seen the article that Dan Panther put a link up too about the Acetone whoops, I mean lacquer thinner.

She did pack the phone well, I paid a little extra to get the large flat rate box, that helped too. Anyhow, that full phone picture is a photo from the original sales listing, if you look you can see the crack there, same line.


Craig T

#5
Quote from: Dan on February 26, 2011, 05:32:30 PM
If the sellers or the USPS mark "fragile" on the outside, do they pay attention to this or is this for show only? I have had two broken delivered to me, both were the only ones marked not fragile.

I am sorry for your misfortune. That is an extremely early and rare coloured red 500.

Thanks Dan,

I just adjusted the title, it is 4-55 not 54. All parts are dated in yellow and match except one of the caps is 10-55 and one of the elements was something else too. The dial was froze up, but I have that working now. It is nice to have a set of original cords, both from 1956.

I always thought you were supposed to mark a Fragile parcel as Fragile if insuring, though I cannot say that could result in denial of a claim without looking at the USPS rules. They do ask, "Anything liquid, fragile, perishable or potentially hazardous?" So they must take extra consideration for Fragile at some juncture.

Dennis Markham

#6
Craig, don't get Acetone anywhere near soft plastic.  The plastic reacts differently to the Acetone than does ABS.

Craig T


jsowers

Craig, I just got an ivory 500 from 11-55 this week, a BIN for $19.99 plus shipping, that has a crack on the opposite corner from yours. I never saw it in the pictures until after I got it, and there's the crack, plain as day, on the left at the foot. There's also a small split in the coil cord. They can't all be perfect.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&&item=180626708571

So you have my sympathy. I've been there many times, but it's pretty unusual to see a Priority box that beat up. You're lucky it didn't sustain any more damage. I'm lucky to have a nice mailman. He even asked once "Are those telephones I keep delivering?" He heard the bells ding on the way down the road and figured it out.  :)
Jonathan

Craig T

Quote from: jsowers on February 26, 2011, 10:12:16 PM
Craig, I just got an ivory 500 from 11-55 this week, a BIN for $19.99 plus shipping, that has a crack on the opposite corner from yours. I never saw it in the pictures until after I got it, and there's the crack, plain as day, on the left at the foot. There's also a small split in the coil cord. They can't all be perfect.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&&item=180626708571

So you have my sympathy. I've been there many times, but it's pretty unusual to see a Priority box that beat up. You're lucky it didn't sustain any more damage. I'm lucky to have a nice mailman. He even asked once "Are those telephones I keep delivering?" He heard the bells ding on the way down the road and figured it out.  :)

That Ivory is real nice and the price was nice too, good eye on that!

I feel lucky, if it had been raining I think the top would have fell off of this box. Nothing like getting your phone delivered in a drop top Priority Mail box :)

Craig T

#10
Everything on the outside is finished up. I still have some OCD left to satisfy on the interior some other time. The dial on this is the most growly one I have run across yet. It dials out just fine, just loud and gritty sounding. I went down and tested it out for a call too. Very long line cord on this one, must be 10 feet or better.

Dennis Markham

Very nice Craig!  You did a great job on that phone.  The growl may be able to be adjusted by adjusting the gear train.  When you're looking at the back of the dial, the upper screw on the left....loosen, move it a tad either way, re-tighten and re-try.  Trial and error.  Sometimes just a tiny bit of adjustment will make the difference.


bingster

That one could have been a great disaster, given the condition of the box, but what a beaut it turned out to be!  The cords are a dead match, too, and not at all browned.  Very nice, Craig!
= DARRIN =



Craig T

Quote from: Dennis Markham on February 27, 2011, 08:46:45 PM
Very nice Craig!  You did a great job on that phone.  The growl may be able to be adjusted by adjusting the gear train.  When you're looking at the back of the dial, the upper screw on the left....loosen, move it a tad either way, re-tighten and re-try.  Trial and error.  Sometimes just a tiny bit of adjustment will make the difference.



Thanks Dennis, I am gonna get the phone out right now and try to do that. It is definitely beyond normal. Your black wire from G to L1 was all it took to make it ring.

That one could have been a great disaster, given the condition of the box, but what a beaut it turned out to be!  The cords are a dead match, too, and not at all browned.  Very nice, Craig!

Thank you Bingster, I thought me and the phone were gonna be shattered when I seen that box.

I heard about the box being damaged while I was at work, I arranged for the box to be dropped off because I could not bear to sit for the next 3-4 hours waiting to see. I had looked the whole phone over inside and out and was astonished there was no major damage... then I seen the corner crack. Still as some have commented, that should be a fixable crack as long as I don't go dumping Acetone on it like I was talking before  :)

GG



Excellent work there.   Every one of those that any of us salvages, is a victory for longevity over obsolescence.  Agreed about the dial gear train.  IMHO that's why they changed the dial design from the '48 to the production model: make it adjustable to take up wear over its typical 40-year lifespan. 

If I were trying to repair a crack on a soft plastic housing, I'd first clean the entire area inside & out with a soft toothbrush and just a little plain liquid dish soap & plenty of water.  Let it dry, then use krazy glue on the crack to get it to seal up.  Then (this may seem heretical but what the heck) cut out a piece of modelmaker's plastic or some similar material, or find something that would conform to the interior contours of the housing around the crack, and krazy glue that to the interior.  The point of the piece of plastic on the interior is to provide some rigid material without a crack in it, to reinforce the area where the crack is and prevent it splitting open again.  Then let everything harden up overnight, and then draw a thin line of krazy glue over the crack on the exterior, let that harden overnight, sand down to flush using 600 grit sandpaper, and buff with white compound.  The goal here being to make the crack disappear amidst the reflections of ordinary light off the buffed surface.  And of course, continue to treat that phone as inherently fragile despite the repair. 

Re. squished packages: seems to me the thing to do is insure all of these shipments for a high value that reflects the total amount paid or the total amount you valued the item for per your Ebay bid, and then make the shipper pay up for damage.  Nothing is quite as convincing a way to stop misbehavior (such as using packages as wedges to prevent trucks rolling downhill) as having to pay for the damage.  Also the paperwork itself will cost the shipper added $$ in labor for admin overheads.  If everyone does this it will begin to have an impact, if nothing else, by way of insured packages getting treated more carefully.