Been watching this one for the past week (and kept it secret cos I'm like that!!), and boy am I happy, it may have scratches, a crack in the case, and look a bit dusty, but, I like it, cos it's red... ;D
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/160699116713
The seller stated that it has a line cord, but it's not fitted (as pictured), I don't know what plug it has on the end though... :)
Anyway, these pictures below are the ones the seller sent me last week, I'm sure you can all guess what question I'll be asking when I get the phone... :D
You got a real soft plastic 500 for a cheap, even with shipping :).
Larry
hehe, I never really thought about it being soft-plastic, but then I don't really know what soft-plastic is, I just like the phone... :D
All in all it was £21.53, and already in the UK so no import issues (the Revenue & Customs people are horrible, they make us brits pay again for things after we've already paid for them!!), I just hope it gets packed properly so the crack doesn't spread out, but we shall see... :)
Somehow that phone made if from the US state of Washington to the UK. Area code 206 was once the area code for the whole state of Washington, but now it is the area code for just the main part of Seattle.
Soft plastic (tenite) was used by WE for coloured phones until mid 1959. Soft plastic colour phones are much more valuable than ABS (hard plastic). Be warned that soft plastic melts and dissolves easily, so be careful what you do with it. Super glue should do a good job repairing the crack.
Larry
Quote from: Phonesrfun on December 22, 2011, 02:26:42 PM
Somehow that phone made if from the US state of Washington to the UK. Area code 206 was once the area code for the whole state of Washington, but now it is the area code for just the main part of Seattle.
The seller told me by e-mail that they picked it up in the states about 15 years ago, so I guess that's how it made it's way here... ;D
I thought just for the heck of it, I'd look up the number, and it appears to be currently owned by a lawyer in Seattle, whether that was the original location or not, I don't know, but it'd be funny if I sent them a picture of the phone with "their" number on it.... :D
Anyways, I looked up Tenite on the web, and it looks like it's made from cellulose derived from wood, an interesting choice for plastic, but I guess it makes it unique... :)
And I never really considered it's value, I just saw it and thought to myself "I want that phone!!!", cos the only red phone I have is a BT Viscount, which isn't a rotary, and not even DTMF, it's somewhere inbetween... :D
Well, I got myself a new tube of superglue, managed to squirt a load over my laptop and my t-shirt trying to open it (needed it for trying to repair something else), which was just silly.... ::)
One thing I'm wondering, reading through some of the posts on soft plastic/tenite, some cases apparently crack due to the plastic contracting, from the picture, the crack in the case is open, rather than something that sits closed after impact or stress, so, I'm wondering if it is shrinkage, either that or the dial is misaligned and someone in the past pressed the case on and broke the plastic... ???
Anyway, can't really say anything for sure until I have the phone in my hands and under the screwdriver, which I hope is before next year... :D
After you spill super glue onto your hands/clothes/etc., the way to remove it is with acetone (or nail polish remover).
You should certainly check to make sure that the opening in the shell for the dial bezel will be large enough after closing the crack. It it is not, you may need to carefully remove some plastic with sandpaper to enlarge it. Apply the glue to the inside of the shell (only) very sparingly. Any hardened glue on the outside of the shell may be quite difficult to remove as it will be much harder than the plastic, and anything which will dissolve it will also dissolve the plastic.
Larry
One trick I learned about repairing plastics is if you let any glue ooze out, then the easiest way to get rid of it is to take a knifeblade (the disposable sort), evenly wrap electrical tape round the blade on each end, leaving a gap just wide enough to scrape the glue off, then scrape (not cut) away at the strip of glue, and then to lower the blade gradually, you just take off a layer of tape at a time, and that helps to get a smoother finish for when you sand things down... :)
I learnt that off the telly, and it really does work... :D
When I first found the phone, I was thinking of using 2-part epoxy to glue the case together, rather than superglue, mainly cos I'm used to the epoxy, but I know very little about the properties of tenite, but that's why I'm reading as many posts with "soft plastic" or "Tenite" in them... :)
Expect your phone to smell like cheese :)
Larry
Quote from: LarryInMichigan on December 25, 2011, 07:18:50 PM
Expect your phone to smell like cheese :)
Larry
No worse than my walking shoes then... :D
Actually it will smell like parmesan cheese! Not a bad smell to me, but your mileage may vary. ;)
Now would that be real Parmesan or the stuff in a plastic shaker tub thing that looks and smells like rotten foot scrapings swept up off a podiatrists floor? :D
Got an ebay update today, it's been posted, should be here in a few days... :)
Well, I have the phone, and we have a new phoneline at last, but the phone's case seems to be distorted, resulting in the crack which is fefinitely a tension crack rather than an impact crack, and I daren't try anything to straighten it out incase I melt or break the tenite... :o
Either way, the dates inside match, even on the dial (my black WE500's dial is a '67 I think), it has a proper original US line cord with the 4-pin plug on it, I think I'll swap that with a replacement red GPO cord though cos they're easy to come by and should match the phone perfectly (aside from the BT 431A plug on the other end of the line!!), though I have currently got the original re-attached for now... :)
The plastic does feel weird, I've never felt plastic like that before, I can see why it's known as Soft plastic, cos it has a soft feel to it, and the smell, even with a blocked up nose, I could smell that pong from the inside of the handset, very strong smell... :o
I'll have to start a new thread when it comes to repairing it, but we're off out, and I won't attempt repair cos I've got a cold and I don't fancy sneezing all over my new acquisition... :D
In my experience, soft plastic (Tenite) housings often become distorted over time, and can easily become distorted when exposed to heat. The distortion can range from mild to severe. In your case the distortion may have caused the crack.
I don't know of any way to cause a distorted housing to return to its correct original shape. This might become a useful area for someone to experiment: if you have a few distorted Tenite housings around, try using a heat gun or something to soften up the plastic at the point where the distortion occurs, and bend it back into its original position. At worse you still have a broken housing, at best you might have a solution to this issue.
I don't think we can hold sellers responsible for not disclosing this unless it's so obvious that it would show up in any honest picture of the phone: the various complex shapes that add up to a 500 housing don't easily lend themselves to casually detecting a change caused by distortion. You have to have an experienced eye (that would be us, here) to see it unless it's really extreme, and even then, we can miss it even in well lit head-on photos.
What I'd suggest to do with your red 500: get another with an ABS housing, put the ABS housing on the older base. Clean the cracked Tenite housing with room-temperature soapy water and a soft brush (a dedicated toothbrush is excellent for this), rinse in room-temperature water, and let it air dry, then put it in a clear or white plastic bag and store it.
Thus you'll be keeping the original housing for future reference and in case you want to sell the phone at some point, but you'll have an intact and undistorted housing on the phone for everyday use.
I'm not too sure how easy it would be to come across a red replacement red ABS case (unless one from them chinese so-called "GPO" clonephones would fit?), especially one in the UK, in a matching red.... ???
I think what I'll do is clean up the phone, and use it as is, the distortion and subsequent break is part of the originality and it's aging process... :)
Oh, the dial though will need a minor clean up and lubing, but that's pretty much standard practise... :D
The repair and cleaning will be detailed here:
http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=6039.0