Western Electric 302 Textured Finish

[Doug Rose]

In all my years of collecting I have never seen this before. It is a textured finish, H3 date 3/22/47. Any insight?...Doug

[TelePlay]

I'll take a stab at it.

How about a plastic shell that was exposed to a high concentration of some chemical cocktail, possibly in a warm or even hot area, which slowly reacted with he plastic shell over a period of time before the area in which it was located was flushed of the chemical allowing the phone surface to re-solidify but with that textured appearance. Once hard, it was still a functioning phone. The handset, being Bakelite, most likely was unchanged as was the dial. The area under the dial is unchanged. The sides of the shell are warped outward, began to "flow" outward. Just my wild guess.

If this is a metal shell, never mind.

[Ktownphoneco]

It looks like the results of a can of textured black spray paint.    The results most likely, weren't what the "culprit" had hoped for.      On the other hand, it may have something contagious.     Best keep it away from your other sets until you know for sure.  :-)

Jeff Lamb

[unbeldi]

Looks very much painted, as Jeff is saying.  The sharp contours of edges, for example of the grommet holes in the dial area are rounded. Not so from the inside view.  Perhaps the solvents in the paint helped in the effect by momentarily dissolving a layer on the plastic which rearranged driven by the surface stresses now released.

I not even sure one needs texture paint to achieve this, just too much paint perhaps.

[WEBellSystemChristian]

It looks like someone used a gloss paint, but didn't use a sweeping motion white spraying, but rather blasted different sections of the surface without moving the can. That would have created waves, like this has.

[Doug Rose]

There are no drips anywhere. This is completely even, the gorges in the texture seem to be the same everywhere. This is completely covered everywhere on the phone surface including the the hookswitch cover. It does not look like a paint can spray, it looks like it is what it is. I have not tried to clean it up. More to follow...Doug

[NorthernElectric]

It reminds me of hammertone paint, which is designed to leave a textured surface and often used on industrial equipment.  I'd guess whoever painted this phone maybe put it on a bit too thick.

[TelePlay]

The surface is not uniform. Flat areas near the plungers are deeply etched. The flat vertical near the plungers are runs and the sloped areas are smooth ripples. Reminds me of chemical etching.

[Jim Stettler]

It may be a "sample" refurbishing finish. I have seen sample finishes for telephone plastics  before.
Just a guess,
Jim S.

[Doug Rose]

thanks Jim....its as good of an explanation as I can think of. Holding this in my hand, it looks sure real. I understand that everyone thinks it is painted from the pictures, but holding it and looking at it, it sure looks real to me.  I am the biggest skeptic and I am stumped.

I have seen the hammertone finishes that OPW does and this is very different. I saw one at Brimfield and felt it. If this is covered or painted, someone did a very good job. Very tough to photograph.

I will put it together and decide what to do with it.....Doug

[Doug Rose]

I finished the phone and I think John is correct, the case is really shrunk and I had to work on the metal base to make it fit. The pictures do not show the texture as some of the pictures look like the area is smooth. others it look rough like a bad paint job. This is really a different telephone....Doug

[Doug Rose]

Here are some pics that show the finish. It is a keeper.....Doug

[Dan/Panther]

Looking at the enlarged closeup. My guess is Black Wrinkle paint, applied way to heavy. I've had similar results the first time I used it years ago. You are suppose to use lighter carts going across from each other. JMHO
Here is a photo of one example I found.
D/P

[andre_janew]

The textured surface of Doug's phone was most likely the result of chemical etching, not paint.  Some people like textured surfaces because they don't show fingerprints as easily as smooth surfaces.

[teka-bb]

To me it looks like someone tried to strip the paint off...