Restoring a WECo Soft Plastic Ivory 500

[cihensley@aol.com]

I purchased this on eBay several months ago and got around working on it. The color was good so only sanding and polishing to remove minor scratches and dullness was necessary. The shell had a bad ding that I repaired. I cleaned the cord with the jsowers method and soaked it for a few hours in 30% hydrogen peroxide creme. The first two pictures are the phone as acquired, the rest after it was restored.

Chuck

[Dennis Markham]

Nice work, Chuck.  Beautiful phone.

[jsowers]

Chuck, the phone and its cord look fantastic. You certainly improved the end of the cord at the handset. For anyone who wants to know, the method he refers to is cleaning just the cord with denatured alcohol to get off gunk and paint and stuff. Not the phone--just the cord(s). It doesn't harm the cords but it will melt soft plastic.

I especially like that black masked number card. I have an ivory 554 in my kitchen with a card like that and they go well together. Ivory is one of those unsung colors that looks better in person and it looks a lot better cleaned up. It's one of my favorite colors.

[JorgeAmely]

Chuck:

Very nice work. I particularly like the photos of the finished product with a dark, uniform background. How did you take those?

[cihensley@aol.com]

jsowers: I would add your recommendation that a cord be cleaned from the center to the two ends. This seems to make running down the spiral a little easier. And your admonition about not using denatured alcohol on soft plastic leads to a good non-subjective test for that plastic that doesn't rely on smell or fingernail-tapping tests that are subjective.

Jorge: I have about a 5' X 5' piece of black felt cloth that I spread on a table for the photograph. I have a blue piece approximately the same size for taking pictures of black phones.

Chuck