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My first WE302 experience

Started by countryman, September 09, 2019, 04:14:34 AM

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countryman

I learned that a WE302 is an experience for all senses. It looks good, it sounds good, it feels good... well and it smells... ;-)

I was looking for a WE or North phone for a while after a very nice pair slipped through my fingers earlier this year. Now a guy offered an "iron phone" on eBay classifieds. My first thought was a 302 with a metal shell. Not iron of course, but metal. I quickly agreed upon a price and while waiting for the phone I thought that this one must be a european knockoff, a BTMC 2749 maybe.
What arived was a true american WE302 - H1 with nice matching dates from 1949. My guess is, it was made for  the American military for foreign use. It does not have the American lettering but still the word "operator" on the dial.
Don't ask me how someone mistook Tenite for "iron"!
The set arrived complete, not cracked, but scratched and dull, and even the transmitter is still working! Only the handset cord was useless. It was cracked and brittle and someone cut it on both ends! The strain relief of handset and mounting cord show 61 and 55 dates, so they were replaced once. For now I fitted cords that I had. When there is an opportunity to pick up stuff in the U.S. I might replace them properly and also get a dial card holder.
With Christian's great instructions I chemical sanded the shell, which went quite slick. It brought back the shine and took away much off the scratches! I can only recommend to do this operation on dull phones.
With all the info here it was no problem to re-arrange the wiring and repair the ringer suspension with o-rings. The dial just required cleaning with compressed air to work properly!
I'm happy with this phone. It will be perfect for a cool airy hallway. For a living room, next to the fireplace, Tenite might not be the material of choice. I'm afraid I'd get nothing else but body care products and air freshener spray from my friends for next christmas ;-)

Jack Ryan

Quote from: countryman on September 09, 2019, 04:14:34 AM
I learned that a WE302 is an experience for all senses. It looks good, it sounds good, it feels good... well and it smells... ;-)

That is certainly the truth. When I received my first Tenite 302 I was afraid of where it might have been!

Quote
What arived was a true american WE302 - H1 with nice matching dates from 1949. My guess is, it was made for  the American military for foreign use. It does not have the American lettering but still the word "operator" on the dial.

If it were made for military use it would have Signal Corp markings on the bottom and I think that it is too late to have been exported. All of the civilian exported models I have come across were dated during WW2. These were Russian and New Zealand telephones.

The dial you have, I believe a 5HA, is a standard WE listing for subscriber telephones. Most would have a 'B' (lettered) plate but not everywhere was the telephone system state of the art with respect to trunk dialling.

Quote
Don't ask me how someone mistook Tenite for "iron"!

It is a change from being mistaken for Bakelite I suppose.

Quote
The set arrived complete, not cracked, but scratched and dull, and even the transmitter is still working! Only the handset cord was useless. It was cracked and brittle and someone cut it on both ends! The strain relief of handset and mounting cord show 61 and 55 dates, so they were replaced once. For now I fitted cords that I had. When there is an opportunity to pick up stuff in the U.S. I might replace them properly and also get a dial card holder.

I prefer cloth cords myself as the straight plastic/rubber cords are invariably hard. Even the insulation within cloth cords goes hard and brittle.

Quote
With Christian's great instructions I chemical sanded the shell, which went quite slick. It brought back the shine and took away much off the scratches! I can only recommend to do this operation on dull phones.
With all the info here it was no problem to re-arrange the wiring and repair the ringer suspension with o-rings. The dial just required cleaning with compressed air to work properly!

I love it when things just come together. I'll have to look up the chemical sanding technique - I'm not familiar with it.

Quote
I'm happy with this phone. It will be perfect for a cool airy hallway. For a living room, next to the fireplace, Tenite might not be the material of choice. I'm afraid I'd get nothing else but body care products and air freshener spray from my friends for next christmas ;-)

Perhaps I have become used to it but if I refrain from dis-assembling my Tenite 302s, they don't seem to smell any more.

Nice phone, good score.

Regards
Jack

tubaman

When I got my first Tenite WE500 I remember opening that up and the smell hitting me. Not the nicest of aromas!
As @Jack Ryan says, it does seem to keep it to itself if you leave it closed-up.
It's all part of its character so don't try too hard to make it go away.
:)

Your 302 has cleaned-up nicely. All it needs now is a dial centre.

countryman

#3
This is the instruction thread for chemical sanding. I followed it and it went real good. In fact it's scaring at first, when the surface starts to melt, but all was well when I continued polishing with the paper towel until the alcohol dried up. Christian recommends to use liquid polish after that, I'll still have to get some. The polishing paste I use for bakelite, metal and painted objects did not work.
It was really like I "activated" the smell by cleaning. It has got better already, and hopefully will air out even more.

There are miltary sets out here in Europe like described, most of them seem to be younger. It's well possible that this one was brought over by an individual person. The seller said he had it from a flea market, so the traces are lost.

I'll have to find out the ringer frequency of my router and PBX, it's either 25 or even 50 Hz. The 302 rings nicely on my equipment after I set the bias spring to the loosest position.

andre_janew

Here in the United States, I believe the standard ringing frequency is 20 Hz.

Jack Ryan

Quote from: countryman on September 09, 2019, 12:30:05 PM
This is the instruction thread for chemical sanding. I followed it and it went real good. In fact it's scaring at first, when the surface starts to melt, but all was well when I continued polishing with the paper towel until the alcohol dried up. Christian recommends to use liquid polish after that, I'll still have to get some. The polishing paste I use for bakelite, metal and painted objects did not work.

Thanks for that, I've added it to my in-tray. Interesting that the polishing paste doesn't work.

Regards
Jack

FABphones

Quote from: countryman on September 09, 2019, 12:30:05 PM
The polishing paste I use for bakelite, metal and painted objects did not work.....

Which brand did you use? What result did you have with it?
A collector of  'Monochrome Phones with Sepia Tones'   ...and a Duck!
***********
Vintage Phones - 10% man made, 90% Tribble
*************

countryman

I'm using "Elsterglanz" universal polishing paste successfully on other objects. It's made for metals but also works good on bakelite and factory painted metal parts. I guess it is a standard polish similar to many other products. Yet the results aren't convincing on soft plastic. Maybe the abrasive particles are too coarse. I haven't tried it on ABS. It seemed to me that Christian recommended liquid polish for a reason. I still have to try...
Chrome browser should translate the linked site fairly well.

countryman

Quote from: countryman on September 09, 2019, 12:30:05 PM


I'll have to find out the ringer frequency of my router and PBX, it's either 25 or even 50 Hz.
I just unboxed a new chinese multimeter with frequency and capacitance range.
A longer test had shown that the 302 does NOT ring reliably on the PBX, but on the router.
I tested 25 Hz ringer frequency on my router and 50 Hz on the PBX. In fact most phones ring much better on the router directly. More modern euro phones ring OK on 50 Hz also, so the PBX manufacturer (Telnet) thought they could use plain transformed AC mains current as well  >:(

I guess the capacitance range might also be a nice feature for the phone hobby.

Jack Ryan

Quote from: countryman on September 25, 2019, 05:34:19 PM
A longer test had shown that the 302 does NOT ring reliably on the PBX, but on the router.
I tested 25 Hz ringer frequency on my router and 50 Hz on the PBX. In fact most phones ring much better on the router directly. More modern euro phones ring OK on 50 Hz also, so the PBX manufacturer (Telnet) thought they could use plain transformed AC mains current as well  >:(

I think a lot of manufacturers thought it was too much like hard work to generate the old ring frequency. It is difficult to generate 16 2/3 (or 20Hz) from the mains (ring frequency was generally 1/3 of the mains frequency once a mains frequency was established).

Various methods were used including pole changes that relied on an electromechanical resonance and other saturating core oscillators that were mains excited.

In the end, it was a lot easier to divide by 2 than 3 so 25 (or 30) Hz was used. It was even easier to divide by 1.

Modern electronic ringers don't normally have a problem with 25 or 50 Hz but electromechanical ringers have a natural resonance around 20Hz and are pretty stubborn about not ringing as well at 25Hz and not at all at 50Hz.

Jack


countryman

25 Hz would be right at least for vintage german phones. Not sure about other european countries. 20 or 25 is not far off but it seems 50 Hz is way out of resonance.