remanufacuring WE 300 Shells

[Babybearjs]

Has anyone ever looked into how much it would actually cost to have the theroplastic shells to the WE 300/400 series phones reproduced at todays prices... I know plastic manufacuring companies can still do this, even in color! with as many black 300/400 series phones floating around on ebay at any one time, it just makes me wonder if someone should approach a plastics company and see if the shells could be remade. if colors ar added then the black handsets would need to be painted, but that seems minor. or course this would make the phone more "reconditioned" then original, but it would add more color to all the black sets that were originally made.. since the "bell system" is gone, then they shells would have to be remade from scratch. (molds, etc) and if black was the only color choice, then so be it for cost sake.  what does everyone think of this suggestion/idea???  John

[GG]

YES, let's do it!  The way to do the housing is to start with one original metal 302 housing, to use as a master for making molds.  Reproducing clear hookswitch plungers would be pretty straightforward, based on machining one sample to match an original and then using that for a mold. 

We would also need metal inserts for the mounting screws for the base and for the hookswitch.  Also needed is a rubber gasket or similar spacer for under the dial, and the three metal eyelets for the dial screws.  Alternately some modern solution could be found; if a hard bakelite-like plastic was used, it might be sufficiently strong by itself to enable mounting the dials with nothing more than regular dial screws and washers. 

While we're at it we could also have the handsets made in an appropriate hard plastic that could withstand heavy use.  Personally I don't like the idea of painting over originals in contrasting colors, so I'd rather see a) replica handsets or b) black handset & dial with whatever-color housing (Bell did that with early 500s so it's not totally blasphemous to do it with 302s). 

---

There are no copyright or trademark issues since the Bell System and WE don't exist any more. 

There is a possible issue of unscrupulous or innocently-mistaken dealers selling these as originals.  The way to deal with that is:  a) stickers on the bases saying "Reproduction housing and handset shell, original electrical components."  b) A clear and distinct mark to identify repro materials.  I'd suggest a capital R in a triangle (the R in a circle is for "Registered trademark"), that would be put in any of the following places:

- Inside the housing in a visible location, and inside the transmitter and receiver caps, and inside the handset shell in the area behind the receiver element. 

- Possibly at the rear of the housing just above the base cord entry hole. 

- Possibly on the handset handgrip in the small flat area immediately below the receiver cap. 

The latter two locations would not be visible in normal use, but would be easy to find to verify that these were repro parts, thus enabling honest dealers to represent them correctly (and deterring dishonest dealers from lying).

---

As for colors:

Use the original Bell colors: ivory, red, green, and dark blue.  With sufficient demand, add light blue, light red (pink), and yellow.  If we wanted to get crazy, add orange and light violet (lavender) and a light turquoise green. 

Doing these in original Bell colors would also have the highly beneficial effect of wiping out the "financial speculator" market in these phones: people who could care less about telephony but are just in it to jack up the prices on originals because they're rare.   However there is a risk of driving up prices on original black 302s since those could be converted to color.  This issue deserves further discussion in depth. 

---

If the sold like crazy to the general public, the next step would be to duplicate the baseplate and make parts for them.  There are two possible approaches to this: 

One, reproduce the original parts.  That strikes me as too difficult to be worthwhile considering that historic collectors would end up buying the housings & shells only and installing original parts, and the general public wouldn't much care as long as the phones worked properly. 

Two, reproduce only the dials (difficult but not impossible: just say China!), and then create a new base assembly and hookswitch assembly.  Use Cortelco networks, transmitters and receivers.  The handset shell would need to be designed slightly differently to fit the U3 receivers and T1 transmitters, but it could be done with plastic ring inserts that enable using any combination of F1, T1, HA1, and U3.  Use modern Cortelco ringers, and optionally create new bells for them with the pitch of the original B1AL bells.  This would also enable having a slot cut in the base for the ringer volume control (or not, in which case open up the housing to adjust the volume, most of the time it only needs to be done once).  If I was doing this, I'd use Cortelco hookswitches and mount them on the base, 500-style, because those parts are already available. 

With enough volume it might be possible to get Cortelco to build the dials as well, though they would be modern type 9 or subsequent mechanism with a custom-designed numberplate and using standard modern fingerwheel or a repro of the "soft center clear fingerwheel", which IMHO is acceptable. 

Optionally, a Rotatone converter could be fitted inside, thereby enabling the * and # tones by holding the dial off-normal for a second on the digits that served dual-function.  Or design & manufacture our own and if Rotatone has a patent on the method for getting * and #, license the patent from them. 

Price target:  Ideal case, retail at $100.00 even, for the entire set with the custom-designed base and Cortelco components.  Crosley sells theirs retail for $50, which means they cost about $12 to produce.  The "new 302" I'm describing, could probably be produced in decent-sized batches at about $50 to $75 per unit, which provides some room for profit margin to the original investors in the project. 

---

And then, if we want to get really ambitious:  do a repro of the WE 302-style multi-line set with Hold button and 5 "line" buttons.  The way I'd do this one would be to use an 8-conductor cord (thus, Ethernet-type plugs & jacks), which would handle: 2 CO lines, dial intercom on line 3 (single-digit dialing, KSU-less, and a little switch inside the phone to assign its station number), and the 4th pair would be DC power from an adaptor connected to the terminal box at the far end of the base cord.   Use the 4th "line" button for Flash, and the 5th for microphone mute, though with a circuit that muted the mic silently rather than with an obnoxious click.  This unit could actually be used as a home or small office phone system with reasonable success.  It could also be used behind PBXs as an analog phone with two extensions as lines.   Retail price point for this one should be in the $150 - $200 range. 

The idea of getting these things into wide circulation as practical small-office phones is highly intriguing as a way to unleash a "viral meme" about retro technology. 

--

[GG]

Business-planning the project:

If all we're doing is colored main housings, as a small scale project for the community, the amounts involved would be within range of one or two people to spring to get it going. 

If we're going to do something ambitious like all-new 302s with high quality parts, this becomes a 6-figure startup that'll need to be planned and executed more carefully.   What I'd suggest is:

1)  A project working-group commits to doing the project.  This consists of investors and design engineers.  First they get the whole thing priced out: exactly what it's going to cost to do an initial production run that will pay for itself and earn a bit of a profit for funding the next production run. 

2)  Each investor commits to a 1/N fraction of the total cost, but no money changes hands yet. 

3)  At that point, the announcement goes out to the community, and members at-large commit to buying however many of these they want, but no money changes hands yet. 

4)  When the threshold number of purchase orders (3) is reached to make the project viable, that becomes the trigger to do the project.  At that point the investors write their checks to the company to get the ball rolling, and the community members each put down deposits of 50% of the cost of the units they are committing to buy. 

5)  Assume a retail price of $100 each, and a typical collector wants one in each of four colors: thus that individual would send in a check for $200 as a deposit.   At this point everyone is financially committed to the success of the project.   The investors have received checks for purchase orders totaling about 75% - 80% of their money, so they have a downside risk of anywhere 20 - 25% (against an upside profit of about the same when the project succeeds).  Each member of the community is in it for a couple hundred bucks, which is also a financial risk but bearable. 

6)  Once the goods are delivered, the community members pay the balance and get their phones, and the investors earn their profit on the project. 

7)  Having done it once all the way through, the next step would be for everyone to get back in for the second batch, that would be sold on the general market.  This could be repeated as often as demand called for. 

8 )  At some point it becomes feasible to do things such as limited production runs in unusual colors, or other variations that would attract ongoing interest.  At some point it might become feasible to do the 2-line set with 10-station intercom.  And what would be super darn cool would be to have as much of it made in the USA as possible, though it might take a few rounds to get to the point where that becomes feasible. 

---

Another technical variant or two: 

Using the 5-line keyset.  When no line key is pressed (or after you press Hold and the line keys restore to normal position), you get Intercom dial tone.  This frees up one more of the 5 "line" buttons, which IMHO should be used as a "headset" button, in conjunction with a mod jack at the rear of the set, into which could be plugged any standard Plantronics headset.  Also offer a touchtone dial option with standard 4x3 layout built into a 3" round housing so it's interchangeable with the rotary dial (this can be done; it was fairly common in Europe at one point).  Now what you have is a fully-functional office phone that would be practical as well as too darn cool for words. 

---

OK, am I nuts or does this sound like a reasonable basis to start thinking of a path forward here?

[dsk]

It was a group at Yahoo dealing withthis:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TelephoneSpares/
Not active now, but you may find some tho make the parts.

dsk

[Doug Rose]

YES, let's do it!  The way to do the housing is to start with one original metal 302 housing, to use as a master for making molds.  Reproducing clear hookswitch plungers would be pretty straightforward, based on machining one sample to match an original and then using that for a mold. 

We would also need metal inserts for the mounting screws for the base and for the hookswitch.  Also needed is a rubber gasket or similar spacer for under the dial, and the three metal eyelets for the dial screws.  Alternately some modern solution could be found; if a hard bakelite-like plastic was used, it might be sufficiently strong by itself to enable mounting the dials with nothing more than regular dial screws and washers. 

While we're at it we could also have the handsets made in an appropriate hard plastic that could withstand heavy use.  Personally I don't like the idea of painting over originals in contrasting colors, so I'd rather see a) replica handsets or b) black handset & dial with whatever-color housing (Bell did that with early 500s so it's not totally blasphemous to do it with 302s). 

---

There are no copyright or trademark issues since the Bell System and WE don't exist any more. 

There is a possible issue of unscrupulous or innocently-mistaken dealers selling these as originals.  The way to deal with that is:  a) stickers on the bases saying "Reproduction housing and handset shell, original electrical components."  b) A clear and distinct mark to identify repro materials.  I'd suggest a capital R in a triangle (the R in a circle is for "Registered trademark"), that would be put in any of the following places:

- Inside the housing in a visible location, and inside the transmitter and receiver caps, and inside the handset shell in the area behind the receiver element. 

- Possibly at the rear of the housing just above the base cord entry hole. 

- Possibly on the handset handgrip in the small flat area immediately below the receiver cap. 

The latter two locations would not be visible in normal use, but would be easy to find to verify that these were repro parts, thus enabling honest dealers to represent them correctly (and deterring dishonest dealers from lying).

---

As for colors:

Use the original Bell colors: ivory, red, green, and dark blue.  With sufficient demand, add light blue, light red (pink), and yellow.  If we wanted to get crazy, add orange and light violet (lavender) and a light turquoise green. 

Doing these in original Bell colors would also have the highly beneficial effect of wiping out the "financial speculator" market in these phones: people who could care less about telephony but are just in it to jack up the prices on originals because they're rare.   However there is a risk of driving up prices on original black 302s since those could be converted to color.  This issue deserves further discussion in depth. 

---

If the sold like crazy to the general public, the next step would be to duplicate the baseplate and make parts for them.  There are two possible approaches to this: 

One, reproduce the original parts.  That strikes me as too difficult to be worthwhile considering that historic collectors would end up buying the housings & shells only and installing original parts, and the general public wouldn't much care as long as the phones worked properly. 

Two, reproduce only the dials (difficult but not impossible: just say China!), and then create a new base assembly and hookswitch assembly.  Use Cortelco networks, transmitters and receivers.  The handset shell would need to be designed slightly differently to fit the U3 receivers and T1 transmitters, but it could be done with plastic ring inserts that enable using any combination of F1, T1, HA1, and U3.  Use modern Cortelco ringers, and optionally create new bells for them with the pitch of the original B1AL bells.  This would also enable having a slot cut in the base for the ringer volume control (or not, in which case open up the housing to adjust the volume, most of the time it only needs to be done once).  If I was doing this, I'd use Cortelco hookswitches and mount them on the base, 500-style, because those parts are already available. 

With enough volume it might be possible to get Cortelco to build the dials as well, though they would be modern type 9 or subsequent mechanism with a custom-designed numberplate and using standard modern fingerwheel or a repro of the "soft center clear fingerwheel", which IMHO is acceptable. 

Optionally, a Rotatone converter could be fitted inside, thereby enabling the * and # tones by holding the dial off-normal for a second on the digits that served dual-function.  Or design & manufacture our own and if Rotatone has a patent on the method for getting * and #, license the patent from them. 

Price target:  Ideal case, retail at $100.00 even, for the entire set with the custom-designed base and Cortelco components.  Crosley sells theirs retail for $50, which means they cost about $12 to produce.  The "new 302" I'm describing, could probably be produced in decent-sized batches at about $50 to $75 per unit, which provides some room for profit margin to the original investors in the project. 

---

And then, if we want to get really ambitious:  do a repro of the WE 302-style multi-line set with Hold button and 5 "line" buttons.  The way I'd do this one would be to use an 8-conductor cord (thus, Ethernet-type plugs & jacks), which would handle: 2 CO lines, dial intercom on line 3 (single-digit dialing, KSU-less, and a little switch inside the phone to assign its station number), and the 4th pair would be DC power from an adaptor connected to the terminal box at the far end of the base cord.   Use the 4th "line" button for Flash, and the 5th for microphone mute, though with a circuit that muted the mic silently rather than with an obnoxious click.  This unit could actually be used as a home or small office phone system with reasonable success.  It could also be used behind PBXs as an analog phone with two extensions as lines.   Retail price point for this one should be in the $150 - $200 range. 

The idea of getting these things into wide circulation as practical small-office phones is highly intriguing as a way to unleash a "viral meme" about retro technology. 

--

Ray Kotke has a head start on you...Doug

[Doug Rose]

Here is a clear 302 that Ray made for me...Doug

[Dennis Markham]

It took me a minute Doug to see that clear 302...all I kept seeing when I looked at the photo was the blue one!

[Doug Rose]

It took me a minute Doug to see that clear 302...all I kept seeing when I looked at the photo was the blue one!

Dennis.....my pride and joy. I still can't believe it. What a wild ride that was last summer....Doug

[GG]

I know about Ray; his work goes beyond manufacturing and qualifies as fine art.  And don't I wish I could afford one (some day)!  Since he's already solved the core production problems, he would be a logical choice to ask to do the design engineering on the mass production version. 

And if the design was adopted using Cortelco innards, we could call it a "3520," since if a 5302 is a 302 with a 500-like housing, just swap the numbers around to get a set with 500 parts in a 302 housing : - )

[Dennis Markham]

Call me a purist, but I don't like the idea of flooding the market/world with mass produced fakes.  Perhaps there's a market for that since we see all those reproduction 302's with push buttons but as a collector I wouldn't want one.  

The exception would be something that doesn't exist any longer or are very rare (like Doug's clear 302 and the colored AE sets).   I think with Ray keeping the prices on those relatively high it keeps down the demand (for reproductions).

But opinions are like you-know-what.....everyone has one.  That's just mine.

[Doug Rose]

Dennis.... I agree. If you want a fake color 302, they are out there already. TT, but they are out there.

My clear 302 is a fake, but it has all WE parts with a repro dial card for the Opening of the 39 Worlds Fair. I had a 5J but it was too snug and I worried about damaging the clear base. The 6D is a tad smaller and fit perfectly. The "fake" was made to all the WE specs. It is amazing what Ray can do. I consider myself a purist, but this was something I couldn't pass up....Doug

[Kenny C]

I really don't like like the idea either.

Think in 30 years if we ever did this how tough it would be to find something that was legit. It would be alot tougher for people collecting my age. Not knowing whats what.

JMHO
Kenny C.

[GG]

I'm more a populist than a purist:  I'd like to see these things in peoples' houses all over the place, to where they're as common as they were when I was in high school and people bought 302s as "surplus" for $9.95 ("4-prong plug included") (OK they were black, but none the less : - ).  And I'd like to see them affordable to the masses, meaning working stiffs (such as myself and most of my friends).  Crosley did a tolerable job but we can do better. 

Kenny, the whole issue of fakery is why I proposed marking the housings and handset plastics with the letter R (for Replica) in a triangle.  If the mark was impressed into the plastic, it would be nearly impossible to eradicate, and a quick glance or a decent photo (which should always be requested for items that appear to be rare/expensive) would tell you if it was original or replica.   And another thing: you could afford to give these to close friends as gifts, and they'll become "viral memes" and catch on. 

WE and AE and the rest of them constantly recycled and remanufactured components, and there were "outsource" companies that served the independent telcos and produced plastics for them (the North Electric "Galion" got this treatment a lot).  500s and 2500s still turn up with "no-name" plastics on them.  IMHO those are all perfectly valid examples:  not "original Western Electric," but Cortelco isn't Kellogg either and they're still making "real 2500s," thankfully, because I use them in PBX installations every chance I get, just to spread the meme that these things still exist and are still good.   

That said, if there's a consensus on doing AE Monophones, whether 1a, 34, or 43, I'm all for that too.  Originals in color that aren't halfway destroyed, are so rare that a sudden flood of replica housings wouldn't stir up a stinkypoo.  And by sticking to a couple of basic colors, there would be no impact on Ray's market for artisan craftsmanship, rare colors, and specialized treatments such as chromed handset bands etc. 

So: for all the folks who object to doing the 302, how'bout any of the AE Monophones?  Can we get consensus at least on doing AE, and then figure out which one(s) to do?   (How'bout the 2-line version of the type 43, in colors?  As far as I know those never existed in color, so there's no question of confusing the replica for an original.)

[Doug Rose]

GG...obviously you can do whatever you want, it is a free country. Myself, I collect OLD telephones. Vintage, antique, classic from eras gone by. Love the sound of the ring that only brass bells give you. The clickety clack of the dial. A handset that can double as a weapon. REAL porcelain dial plates. I would not want an "old looking" phone that weighs less than a pound. I collect them all, so whether it SC AE or WE, I just want the real deal. Not Cortelco or Crosley. Just my opinion. Go for it, there will be a market for it, just not for me....Kidphone

[dsk]

As some has said, we may worry about the copies may be sold as originals. Should be solved by the R in a triangle, if it is easy to see. E.g. beside the Western Electric logo.

Another problem is if you get an old phone with new components inside.

The Crosley versions covers a market: People want the old look the modern weight and functions. And may throw it away when they want a new one, (Half a year later )  

I'm collecting phones who lasts, and if spares not available, a copy may due, just to make it working, or for display.  Happily they were made to last, and does so. Carbon transmitters are not easy to get here (Norway) so I have used some electronic replacements.

Seems like the carbon capsules made from the 500 era and later has quite betterr quality than what I have.   The reason may be the improved networks with varistors. (not used here)

dsk