Like I need another phone

[Phonesrfun]

Was in my home town of Portland, OR this week end for a high school reunion. 

Went to an antique store and bought this AE 40 yesterday.  Not a steal, but right in there at $25 as reasonable.  Very clean inside, 25~ frequency ringer that at least vibrates a bit on my service. 25~ is close enough that maybe I can move the weight around a bit to get more resonance. 

Sticky dial, and no cracks.  No line cord either.  Something else to add to my list of things to do.

-Bill

[Dennis Markham]

Bill, great dial card.  It looks like the porcelain is in good shape too.  Nice phone.

[Dan/Panther]

That porcelain looks like it jumps right out at you, must be almost mint.
D/P

[Phonesrfun]

Thanks, D/P:

It is actually in extremely good condition.  I do need to clean and lube the dial, because it sticks.  Other than the sticky dial and the frequency ringer, the phone works.  I was able to move the weight out a bit to resonate it at the lower 20~ better, but when I put the cover back on, the mounts in the bakelite get in the way of the weight being moved out, so I guess I'll do without a ringer for now.  Obviously, the handset cord is also not original, but fully functional.  Sound quality tests out good too.  Just playing around, I took some Novus #2 to the dial finger wheel and got a nice lustre out of it.

[mienaichizu]

nice phone you got there bill, a little polish and buffing and it will look new again

[HobieSport]

Hey Bill as you may know I have ten AE 40s sitting on my desk right now as my next project. First I'm just figuring out which ones have ringers that will work, and I'll set the rest aside and tackle the ones with straight line ringers first.

Most of the dials are sticky, so I'd be very interested in any pictures or reports from you about what you may do with your AE 40 dial.

But first things first: I'm not even sure how to test them for ringing, as none have modern jacks (I'll get a jack adapter) but most of the line cords are just bare wires on the ends.

Anyway, I'll be watching your AE 40 project with great interest if you post pics and more descriptions of what you are doing on it. I think there are others here too who would love a bit of a progress report/tutorial of a refurb of an AE 40.

I'm getting off to a slow start here, as these are really my first refurb jobs.

[Phonesrfun]

Matt:

I will keep the group posted, and I will do some kind of a blow by blow description on the dial.  However, hooking your AE 40's up, or any other phone with just the spade tip line cord is the easy part.  See the attached.

Just hook the red and green wires from the phone to the red and green of one of these terminal blocks.  Then just run a modular cord from the modular end of the block to your modular jack on the wall.  It's that simple.

The RJ11 style jack can have as many as 8 connectors, as this one does.  They can be bought in 8,6 and 4 wire versions.  ANY one of those will work, because you only need pair #1 which is the red and green pair, so don't let all the extra wires confuse you.

Often, you will want to also hook the yellow coming from the phone to the same terminal as the green, in case the phone is internally wired for divided party line ringing.  The talking and dialing circuit ALWAYS runs on the red and green only.  Yes, there are only two wires (one pair of wires) connecting you with the outside world.

You can get these blocks, or "biscuits", as they have been called,  at almost any retailer, including Dollar Tree, Staples, Radio Shack, Ace Hardware, Lowes, Home Depot, and the list goes on and on.

Let us know how you do.

[foots]

Sticky AE dial - this should be of some help. http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=1049.0

[McHeath]

I've only seen one AE 40 in person, it was a rather rough one in an overpriced antique store and they wanted a lot for it.  It had a certain heft that was impressive, and the style is pretty neat, Deco even. 

And Bill that looks like a good buy and a good phone for the money.  And of course we all NEED another phone, eh?

[Phonesrfun]

Hey Jorge:

I am happy to report that I used your step-by-step photos and found them very helpful.  In fact your pictures and steps are so great that I did not bother taking any more pictures than my first few.  They (mine) were not the best pictures any way.  Now the AE 40 dial works like it is brand new.  I have done several AE and WE dials in the past, but your documentation is the best I've seen.

So, Matt, continue to take them to Steve Hilsz or try following Jorge's pictures.  I think the hard part is cleaning the very small thrust washers and nuts and not loosing them or getting them mixed up.  It is good that Jorge identified the pieces so well.

I used a syringe with the needle point snipped off as an oiler, rather than a toothpick.  I have to give myself injections, so I had a syringe handy.

-Bill

[JorgeAmely]

Bill:

I am glad that my instructions have been useful to you. 

I usually take the dial apart inside a small box, so in case something flies away, it doesn't get lost in the carpet. I once lost the tiny lock washer that locks the cam in place. So I put a new bag in the vacuum cleaner, vacuumed up the office and ripped the bag to get the washer back. 

The larger parts of the dial are cleaned with a small toothbrush. The small washers and screws go into a tiny bottle with acetone or alcohol and I shake them up for a while to remove oil and residues. Then with a pair of tweezers, I pick them up and place on a paper towel to dry. It is not worth it to take the contacts pile apart. There is not much dirt hidden in there and you can spend an hour easily putting the whole thing together again.

This dial is more complicated than a WE dial, but the wind up is silent (except the very early models). The release in my opinion is quieter than a WE dial.

[bwanna]

it's not about what you need, it's about what you want   nice phone, bill. good luck with the clean up.

[HobieSport]

Hi Bill et al.,

I got some of my AE 40s working. At least a dial tone, and that is a very welcome sound.

I unstuck the sticky dials just temporarily with a little WD40 just for testing purposes. I know that WD40 is a no-no on dials or at least not a real fix. It just attracts more dust, and it can maybe mess up the govorner?

After having seen Jorge's most excellent pictorial essay on refurbishing an AE dial, (Thanks you Jorge!) I can say that I will not be attempting to do that, and will be sending my dials to Steve Hilsz.

Bill, I'm going to send you a private email today to exchange phone numbers again, in hopes that we can call each other on free long distance sometimes to say howdy and to test our various phones. If that's okay with you.

Heath: You really need an AE 40. It's not about sacrificing buying shoes for the children to buy an AE 40. It's more about any child who grows up without understanding an AE 40 is a child left behind. Sorry, I'm just kindly kidding of course. I greatly respect that you are a teacher.

[McHeath]

Pretty funny Matt.   

Trouble is there are so many phones, and so little place to put them.   

[dsk]

Thanks, D/P:

It is actually in extremely good condition.  I do need to clean and lube the dial, because it sticks.  Other than the sticky dial and the frequency ringer, the phone works.  I was able to move the weight out a bit to resonate it at the lower 20~ better, but when I put the cover back on, the mounts in the bakelite get in the way of the weight being moved out, so I guess I'll do without a ringer for now.  Obviously, the handset cord is also not original, but fully functional.  Sound quality tests out good too.  Just playing around, I took some Novus #2 to the dial finger wheel and got a nice lustre out of it.

Whats happening if you just try to put in a 0.5 microfarad capacitor in parallel with the existing ringer capacitor?
Does it ring better? 

dsk