1931 202 Before & After

[zaphod01]

Here's my first serious restoration attempt. I know the purists will mark me down for using an F1 but I don't have a buffer (yet) and although the E1 cleaned up nicely, it was too dull to use with the powder coated base. I had a buffed, solid core F1 from Navy Salvage in my spares.

Robert

[AE_Collector]

Looks very nice Robert! Good Job.

I think F1's were legitimate on these as well, aren't they? If the E1 doesn't "Go Back into Service" on another project maybe you can find a way to restore it for the 202 soon.

Terry

[WesternElectricBen]

Amazing! Great job.

Now I need to get back to my Stromberg Carlson 1243 desk set project. I made a mistake while painting and I need to strip the hole body.

Ben

[persido]

Nice job, the phone looks great.

Scot

[Dan/Panther]

Do the best you can on the E-1, and then post us a photo.
Nice job.
D/P

[warpwr]

I've had pretty good luck with black shoe polish.  The paste wax kind like kiwi, not the liquid stuff.

[DavePEI]

I've had pretty good luck with black shoe polish.  The paste wax kind like kiwi, not the liquid stuff.

Back in the early days when I was working at the Post Office, there was a supervisor's desk in the middle of the floor. There was one supervisor we loved to play jokes on. Sitting on his desk was a black 564. One more than one occasion, we used to take the earpiece from it and liberally coat it with black paste shoe polish.

As soon as he returned from break, we would have someone call him from another phone in the letter carrier section - he would pick it up and wind up with a black ear! Darndest is, this worked time after time! We actually liked this guy - pity those we didn't like  

So shoe polish does work well on black phones... and ears, especially of the supervisory kind!  

Dave

[zaphod01]

The hard parts of the E1 looked super with just a gentle cleaning. The difficult part was getting it apart without tearing it up! Finally got out the big strap wrench and that did the trick. 

I used the shoe polish trick on the handle and it made a big improvement. I thought it looked great until I actually sat it on the newly powder coated body. I wish I had a buffer or knew where to send it to have it done.

Robert

[zaphod01]

Project finished! Bead blasting and powder coating turned the ugly duckling D1 base into a swan. I added a buffed, solid core F1 from Navy Salvage and a 5H, numbers only, dial from ebay. Then, I realized I need a subset to complete the project.

I found a '1960's' phone on ebay which was obviously a 5302. Pictures in the listing showed a base dated 5-38, a single hump bottom, and a reverse network. Body was dated 1960. It was nasty dirty but a perfect candidate for a 302 subset case from OPW.

Pics below...