WE 1500D arrives

[McHeath]

Okay, well after 5 total hours spent on the shell here it is.  Final count, 7 acetone scrubs using 100% acetone which melts the plastic.  In between each acetone scrub was a sanding, at one point using 80 grit (!), then 220, then 320.  Finally it turned blue, and I finished off with 400 grit, then 800, 1000 and 2000.  Two coats of rubbing compound and a final of Turtle Wax and it's done.

And my fingers literally all ended up bleeding and needing to have bandaids on them.

The phone is still waiting for a new handset cord, which is coming from Oldphoneworks.  And some more polish inside, but it's mostly done.

Lesson learned:  I will never do this again.

First picture, the shell after all the cleaning and sanding before starting to polish.

[McHeath]

Note the curious blemish in the lower right corner of the above pic, there was some dark material embedded in the plastic that showed up as I stripped it down.

The shell after polishing.

[McHeath]

Reassembled.  The buttons are badly sun faded, the acetone did little more to them then clean off the smoke residue. 

Here it's reassembled.  The black handset cord is just to bide time and it looks better than the yellowed one.  Overall I'm pleased with how it's coming out and it was an interesting process to bring this phone back from the brink. 

[Dennis Markham]

Very nice Heath!  You should be proud of the work you did on that phone.  I can't wait to see it when it's all put back together.  The price of poker just went up.  That phone is worth a million bucks now that you put all that blood, sweat and tears into it.

Now I see that you posted the picture.  Excellent job.

[McHeath]

Thanks.  I'll try to take some final pictures of it when the handset cord arrives and get the lighting right, it looks real washed out in the picture and it's really pretty vibrant blue.

Not sure a million bucks would even make it worthwhile, gee whizz that's a lot of work! 

[benhutcherson]

Looks like you've made a huge improvement on it-it looks far better than it did on arrival.

You could probably swap out just the buttons with those from another(less yellow) 2500 keypad. I've not worked on TT phones enough to even begin to say how to go about doing so, but I imagine that it would be possible and relatively straight forward.

[BDM]

Excellent job, hats off!

[mienaichizu]

Note the curious blemish in the lower right corner of the above pic, there was some dark material embedded in the plastic that showed up as I stripped it down.

The shell after polishing.

I notice that to Mc Heath

nice work on that phone, such a great improvement

[Sargeguy]

Excellent work, very inspiring.  It is still touch-tone, though.   

[McHeath]

Thanks for all the kind words.  I must confess that the more I look at it the more dis-satisfied I grow.  The yellow/green discoloration is still there, amazingly, and still quickly noticeable.  The handset is quite a bit bluer than the shell.  The hard angles of the plastic are all pretty much softened down by all the sanding.  Now a non-phone pfreak would be pretty happy I'm guessing, it's baby blue, it's clean as a whistle, and it's got the weirdo 10 button touch tone thing.  Probably could e-bay it for a profit to what I have in it, except for my time.   

So I think I'm going to start looking for newer plastics, handset and shell, or should I say just better plastics which is my real goal, and see this plastic shell/handset as a temporary fix.  After all the shell and handset are not dated to the chassis, they are from 69' and 70', which makes it a Frankenphone to begin with, so why not look for something better I suppose? 

[Dan/Panther]

McHeath;
That adapter you have is basically the for runner of the 212, before the words Smaller is O.K soaked in.
BTW, when did you order the cord, I just had 6 of them in blue for sale at $8.00 each ?

D/P

[McHeath]

Ordered my blue handset cord right before you put yours up for sale.     You had a way better deal, got mine from Oldphoneworks and it was 15 dollars. 

[Sargeguy]

Your dis-satisfaction will only increase as time goes on.  Sell it before it yellows again and use the $$$ to buy the phone you really want.  A rotary phone you really want, that is.

[McHeath]

Oh I love rotaries as much as the next guy, but I have a fondness for 10 button touch tones as well.  Once the handset cord arrives it will help this 1500 a lot, I think, and it is nice and shiny.  Who knows, maybe the restoration job will grow on as time passes and my fingers regain their feelings.   

[Sargeguy]

Its a slippery slope.  Next thing you know you will start collecting 12-button touch tones!