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noob with a phone (Western Electric 354)

Started by N8N, September 01, 2012, 09:30:33 PM

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N8N

Hi all,

first post here, I'm not really a phone collector or aficionado but I do like well styled products and also have an affinity for industrial design of the 40s and 50s.    Been living with a friend for a while and also helped him remodel a bathroom and kitchen.  His girlfriend was over a week or so ago but he was out, so it was just she and I in the house.  At the time I was attempting to get the wired phone lines in the house working again (after having been butchered by the FiOS installers.)  I was using an old Trimline that I'd found at Goodwill for a couple bucks to troubleshoot and she mentioned to me that "if there was going to be a phone in the kitchen, it should be something cool, a conversation piece."

Say no more!

a few clicks later and I saw this on eBay, and it was in the same state even (but a little too far to drive.)  I showed it to her, she agreed it was "cool looking," and a couple days later, a box appeared at my door, and it really didn't look too bad at first glance.  Some paint spatter on the case, a little dirty, and the dial card and holder were missing.  I attempted to test it but that was a failure...  after furiously searching I ended up here and here's where I have to stop and give some props to Bill Jeffrey.  I stumbled onto his wiring diagrams and PM'd him because they looked nothing like what I was seeing inside the phone.  I still don't know what happened to this thing but long story short, I got tired of waiting for Bill to respond and just snapped some pics for a baseline, and ripped into the thing and made all the connections match Bill's diagrams.  THEN the phone tested good!  Then I exchanged a few messages with Bill who was very nice and helpful, and answered a few noob questions for me (keep in mind, this *is* my first post here.)


So, that said, here's some pics of the phone... this is pretty much as it arrived, but I did clean all the paint splatter off of it, and gave it a halfhearted polish with some plastic polish I had in my car detailing bucket (really intended for light lenses, but I figured it couldn't hurt.)  I stole the dial card holder off a metal dial WE 500 that I've had for ages (it was actually in my parents' basement when I was a kid, and I kept it because it "looked cool" - although now I'm thinking of maybe replacing it with a 302?) and it seems to fit and look right, then printed out a dial card off a pic that I found here:

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v480/dsk/Telephone/labels and signs

so on to the pics:




And a few questions:

1) is a black dial card holder correct?  I see chrome ones available too.
2) What dial card would be "correct" for this phone?  I just picked one for which I could find a decent resolution blank, and filled in the phone number using Times New Roman.  It doesn't look out of place, but I'm sure that I could do a much better job with some guidance.
3) Sources for this stuff?

As you can see it still needs a good polish with something better, and also at some point I need to pull the finger wheel and strip/repaint it, otherwise I'm quite happy with it, and I'm even more happy that I've managed to provide a little style into someone's life with a functional appliance...

thanks for reading, and any comments/suggestions/criticisms welcome!


TelePlay

#1
Welcome to the forum. And, if you are like most of us, you may have one or two phones now but be careful, they multiply quickly if you catch phoneitis, the irresistible urge to buy "just one more."

As for sanding and/or polishing, as needed, there is a wealth of information on almost everything and anything, if not everything, collectors have come across and used to clean, repair, sand and shine up the old phones as necessary. Micro mesh and Novus 2 seem to be quite popular.

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?board=24.0

You can search for "dial cards" from the main forum menu and you'll find a lot of info and ideas there. Some of the more knowledgeable guys on this site can tell you which exact style is best for that phone. The date the phone was made, found inside on components (ringer, dial, network or base) can help determine which is best.

The black dial card holder is standard for the metal black finger wheel.

If the phone doesn't work, plenty of info on the TCI web site and in the forum. If you get to that point, just ask on the forum and have good, in focus, close up pictures of the inside components. The experts on this site are absolutely the best at seeing wiring problems from photos.

N8N

Thanks for the welcome - the phone actually works fine once I got the wiring sorted.  I just cleaned it up last night though and also have to figure out how to mount it...  the wall it should go on has those little 1" glass tiles on it so I'm trying to find a way to mount it and only drill through grout just in case it has to go someday.  There are extra glass tiles... but that's a last resort.  I think a proper polish and repainting of the finger wheel will make this one look pretty decent.  Even the cloth handset cord looks like new other than a few paint dots!  I don't know what something like this really is worth, but I don't feel like I got ripped off, anyway.

TelePlay

#3
If you are going to repaint the finger wheel, you can search the forum for "painting" and get some good ideas on how to strip, polish and then paint or paint and bake or power coat (have powder coated).

What are the dates on the network, ringer, base plate, dial, cover, receiver and transmitter elements? All of those dates together tell the story of the phone - matching dates original or how and when it was fixed by WE. Post the date along with photos of the insides.

A 354 in good condition with a cloth cord is older and possibly worth more. Woolite works well on cleaning cloth cords but if the internal wiring is old and the insulation is cracked, water can cause problems. I've used woolite on internal wires to bring back the original color and that worked well. I know there are posts on the forum about using woolite to clean handset cords.

Some guys like to leave a phone as found, some like to make it better than new. It's your choice. And best of all, have fun and enjoy. Keeping a 60 year old phone alive and well is a noble pursuit.

N8N

#4
I'm pretty handy with a spray can... been fixing/restoring old cars for years.  so the finger wheel I think I can handle.  If it weren't for that gouge where the hook thing was bent and scraping it I'd probably just leave it - I don't want to "over-restore" anything.  I'll snap some pics tomorrow but my recollection is that all the dates on the components were consistent and 1948 I believe.  I think just a good case polish and painting the finger wheel will bring it up to where I'm happy with mounting it.

I did obsessive-compulsively spend some time with the GIMP making a proper dial card for it - the one in the pics was my first effort, just getting it set up to print right, the one I have now has the proper exchange name and everything.  I thought perhaps I wouldn't be able to do that but I started checking nearby towns in the Telephone Exchange Name Project and wouldn't you know, the next town over historically used the same exchange as the number to which this phone will be connected.  I used this file as a blank



then put the exchange in 48/24 pixel Cantarell Bold (for large/small caps) then the actual number in 60 pixel Times New Roman below that.  To make it look more like a stamp, I put spaces between those numbers.  This was all done using my highly calibrated Mark 8 eyeball...  If anyone has any more exact suggestions please let me know, or if you use the GIMP and want a copy of the .xcf file (or converted to photoshop format) to modify for your own use let me know.  I printed the image at 30% on my inkjet and it looks about right.  Here it is in .jpg format:



I'd still like to know if I'm using the "correct" blank or what the actual font was that was used for printing the exchange name on the cards, but I don't think it looks too bad for not knowing what the heck I'm doing <g>

This whole effort reminded me that I have an old Alps printer packed away in storage that I must have bought 15 years or more ago... at the time it just looked like a good printer, then when cartridges became hard to find I stopped using it and stuck it up on a shelf, then years later when I started to get serious about old cars I became friends with a guy who did graphic design, T-shirts, etc. and found him using the same printer, according to him it's the best printer for that kind of work, so it never got sent to Goodwill when I moved...  maybe I ought to see if I can dust it off and get some new cartridges for it.  I bet they're hard to find today though!

Edit: still playing with dial cards.  After looking here

http://www.telephonearchive.com/numbercards/we/we_type_one_classic.html

it looks like the ones that appear to have been printed and not stamped used a font closer to Century Schoolbook L Bold although there's a truly weird "7" that isn't in any of the fonts that I have.  I also tightened up the spacing on the lettering, and I'm pretty sure that the dash is too long after the exchange, but now my OCD is starting to show...

Mk2 of my dial card, and I'm calling it a night...


dsk

 :D great.

I have tried to share my experience with dial cards here:
http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=503.30

The fonts are not equal from PC to PC even when installed from the same CD. (I don't understand why)

I feel quite happy with fonts called "Comic Sans MS" and "Moms old typewriter"

The next step is paper. The best so far is a German brand: Hahnemühle Ref no: 10 628 540 This is 90% bamboo 10% rag 125 lbs.

dsk

dencins

I use 3" x 5" blank index cards for dial cards.  I think I got a package from Staples.  A package of 100 costs about $2.

Dennis Hallworth

N8N

#7
d_s_k, I think the image that I found might have been borrowed from the sheet that you posted in the other thread - it looks darn near identical!  Where did you find the "Mom's Old Typewriter" font, and is it freely available?  I will have to try Comic Sans and see if it looks any closer to "right."

I'm thinking that if I were going to do this seriously, I should probably just buy a repro or original dial card and scan it in super high res then clean it up in GIMP or other image manipulation program, then scale back down in print setup, that would get rid of some of the pixellation assuming that whatever printer you have can handle it... but for proof of concept I think what I did looks OK and honestly, who but someone OCD like me is ever going to notice?

Alternately, if someone ever figures out the correct fonts, it would be absolutely trivial to work them up in AutoCAD and then they'll always print with the best quality that your printer can offer, and will always print correctly scaled too.  The problem is that then you need a CAD program to change the letters/numbers.  I've done work like that before, overlaying CAD objects on top of a scan, then blowing away the scan after everything is right.

Gosh darn it, now I want to get my hands on an original dial card so I can start doing that...

N8N

#8
Here's some pics showing the dates/stamps:








To my unprofessional, untrained eye it looks like everything is pretty consistent and unmolested; the only thing I've done in there is some light cleaning on the case where there was some debris sitting inside at the bottom (looks like possibly degradation of whatever material with which the condenser is wrapped?) and rewired the terminal block per the diagram that I found.

Edit: I also massaged the plate a little bit where it was bent around one of the "keyhole" slots, forgot to mention that.  The work I did doesn't show there though; just a little gentle tweak with some water pump pliers.

I don't actually care if it's *not* particularly valuable or all original, but it's a nice touch if it is (and if it is, I will make more effort to find a 100% correct dial card holder etc.)

N8N

moar pics






You see now why I said 1948, the handset dates are 48, the dates inside the phone itself are 49.  I think you could make the argument that this doesn't necessarily mean that it's not original, although it's impossible to say being a fleaBay purchase with no history.

TelePlay

#10
Quote from: N8N on September 02, 2012, 11:54:45 AM

You see now why I said 1948, the handset dates are 48, the dates inside the phone itself are 49.  I think you could make the argument that this doesn't necessarily mean that it's not original, although it's impossible to say being a fleaBay purchase with no history.

It is quite original. It's a date matching May 1949 phone except for the transmitter and receiver elements probably extra from the prior year's production run of those parts. WE never threw anything away. The pencil markings on the hook switch and base show that it was serviced twice but nothing seems to have been replaced. The person doing the service work would mark the phone that way. The II 49 on the coil means second quarter, 1949 and May is in that quarter. Nice phone, a keeper.

dencins

Quote from: N8N on September 01, 2012, 10:51:13 PM
Thanks for the welcome - the phone actually works fine once I got the wiring sorted.  I just cleaned it up last night though and also have to figure out how to mount it...  the wall it should go on has those little 1" glass tiles on it so I'm trying to find a way to mount it and only drill through grout just in case it has to go someday.  There are extra glass tiles... but that's a last resort.  I think a proper polish and repainting of the finger wheel will make this one look pretty decent.  Even the cloth handset cord looks like new other than a few paint dots!  I don't know what something like this really is worth, but I don't feel like I got ripped off, anyway.

Might not help you with the tiles but I have mine mounted on a RJ11 wall plate using a modular backplate adapter that I got from Jonathan Finder.

http://www.oldphones.com/servlet/Categories?category=PARTS

After the wall plate is installed you can switch phones without drilling more holes.

Dennis Hallworth

dsk

#12
I think you could use DraftSight, its free, and not far from AutoCad Lite.

Fonts under:

dsk

N8N

Quote from: dencins on September 02, 2012, 01:06:53 PM
Quote from: N8N on September 01, 2012, 10:51:13 PM
Thanks for the welcome - the phone actually works fine once I got the wiring sorted.  I just cleaned it up last night though and also have to figure out how to mount it...  the wall it should go on has those little 1" glass tiles on it so I'm trying to find a way to mount it and only drill through grout just in case it has to go someday.  There are extra glass tiles... but that's a last resort.  I think a proper polish and repainting of the finger wheel will make this one look pretty decent.  Even the cloth handset cord looks like new other than a few paint dots!  I don't know what something like this really is worth, but I don't feel like I got ripped off, anyway.

Might not help you with the tiles but I have mine mounted on a RJ11 wall plate using a modular backplate adapter that I got from Jonathan Finder.

http://www.oldphones.com/servlet/Categories?category=PARTS

After the wall plate is installed you can switch phones without drilling more holes.

Dennis Hallworth


Thanks for that, there is already a hole in the wall from where the old wall plate was, so I think that might work!  I think he would accept a new wall plate, he's just not into the holes that would show if he decided to go another direction with the decor.

TelePlay