Bakelite Restoration and Repair

[Bob Angel]

I have been collecting and restoring vintage, veteran and antique telephones for over 30 years and have been developing a Bakelite repair process for over 25 years.
The process repairs cracked and missing areas of Bakelite items and does not include painting over the original damaged item.
All repairs are carried out using a pigment resin process that retains as much originality of the surface as possible.

I posted some images back in May this year of a mottled burgundy telephone I had extensively restored due to damaged parts.
I have added some photos of a red Series 200 body and cradle that have undergone significant restoration due to damage.
 

[unbeldi]

Isn't this rather some kind of urea or melamine formaldehyde resin?

[Bob Angel]

Hi unbeldi,
You are correct, my title to the post mentions Bakelite and it should have included other materials used in the production of early telephones.
Regards
Bob Angel

[HarrySmith]

Another amazing repair! Looks great! On your first post about the mottled phone repair you threatened to share your technique with us, do you plan on carrying out that threat?

[Bob Angel]

Hi Harry,
I had some problems posting articles to the website at one point but that seems to be resolved now.

The Mottled Burgundy Dial Finger Plate
a)   I have added some photos of the restoration of the dial finger plate from the mottled burgundy telephone.

b)   A mould was made to recreate the missing areas of the finger plate.

c)   As the contact points of the repair were going to be very small there needed to be an additional strengthening support within the repair.

d)   In order to create this additional strength a small steel skeleton was produced, small holes were drilled into the fracture surfaces of the finger plate and the skeleton was inserted into the plate and then the plate and skeleton placed in the mould.

e)   The base colour pigment and a variation of mottle pigments were produced.

f)   The missing areas were then created in many, many individual layers of resin that were pigmented to the required base colour of the finger plate. In each layer of pigmented resin there was an infill of the mottle pigment in various sizes and colour to ensure the mottled goes all the way through the repair. This was difficult as the mottle pigment was not to dissolve into the resin layer but had to stay in suspension as a separate colour. 

g)   As you can imagine it was very time consuming but worthwhile.


The other repairs on the phone were carried out using a similar repair method with some variation depending nature of the damage or missing area.

Kind regards
Bob

[.....]

Excellent work, you are a true craftsman. My hat is off to you sir.

Doug

[WEBellSystemChristian]

Wow, what incredible work! I saw your last post, and both phones are just completely spectacular! You, sir, are an artist!

It isn't Bakelite, but I wonder how well you could repair something like this 302:

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=15160.0

[Doug Rose]

Bob...you do real nice work. Phones looks beautiful...Doug

[Rixster]

Hi Bob, I'm new here and just wanted to say that your work is amazing, a true craftsman. Do you do repairs for others? I know I have a job for you.

[Bob Angel]

Hi, Autonut, WEbellSystemChristian, Doug and Rixster,

Many thanks for your kind comments on the restorations, your comments are much appreciated.

WEbellSystemChristian
a)   Your 302 certainly has a number of issues and would definitely require a significant amount of work to restore it.

b)   Repairs to damage of this severity are always a challenge and on some occasions the repair process will be not be suitable for certain types of damage.

c)   I will post some additional comments on the repair process.

Rixster
a)   I do carry out restoration work for many clients in the UK and for clients in many countries throughout the world.

b)   Do you want send me some photos of the item?