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Cool tool: the decapitator. Have you ever seen one of these?

Started by Matilo Telephones, October 26, 2016, 05:51:11 AM

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Matilo Telephones

I saw it and bought it immediately: a kapsel-lostang (cap loosener). So let's call it a decapitator :-).
It is for loosening the caps on handsets.
I have never seen such a tool before and had never heared of it, untill I saw the ad.
In its original packaging with a sticker that indicates it came from the days of PTT, so over 25 years old.
Really useful, as caps can be really stuck sometimes!
Happyhappyhappy!

By the way, the instruction sheet is in Dutch of course, but the writing on the tool itself is German.

Have you ever seen one of these?
Groeten,

Arwin

Check out my telephone website: http://www.matilo.eu/?lang=en

And I am on facebook too: www.facebook.com/matilosvintagetelephones

unbeldi

This only works for one size of caps?

I thought most people buy the standard kitchen tools with rubber bands, called a strap wrench, for opening cans and such. These automatically adjust for the size.

paul-f

Quote from: unbeldi on October 26, 2016, 10:05:38 AM
This only works for one size of caps?

I thought most people buy the standard kitchen tools with rubber bands, called a strap wrench, for opening cans and such. These automatically adjust for the size.

If you're a collector with a lot of different handset models to open, the flexibility of a strap wrench is helpful.

Strap wrenches are not specifically kitchen tools. There are many sizes for different industrial applications such as pipe fitting and filter replacement as well as the general purpose sets sold in hardware stores. For really rugged applications, the "strap" is a chain.

If you're a phone company outfitting thousands of installers to open mainly one model handset, you may build a special purpose tool that's rugged and optimized for the one model.

Western Electric and others did the same thing.  Some have the 438A model with pins that's specific to E-type handsets. The BSPs recommend a strap wrench for F-type handsets.

BSP Ref: C32.275, 074-253-123 and 074-269-116

Edit: added BSP references.
Visit: paul-f.com         WE  500  Design_Line

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Matilo Telephones

I have tried a couple of caps of various sizes. It fits a range of sizes, but to my surprise it does not fit the T65, which was the last model in the PTT inventory to have these caps (except for some retro/repro novelty models from the late eighties).

The T65 caps are too small. Especially the receiver caps.

A strap wrench is probably more versatile, but it is just that I had never seen such a tool before. I know there were tools dedicated to a specific type of cap. But not a generic tool for caps even from a big telephone company from back when.
Groeten,

Arwin

Check out my telephone website: http://www.matilo.eu/?lang=en

And I am on facebook too: www.facebook.com/matilosvintagetelephones