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Restoring a modified Gray 23D Paystation

Started by oyang, November 11, 2015, 02:36:54 PM

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G-Man

Quote from: Stan S on November 12, 2015, 01:01:34 PM
Hello
That 23D was rebuilt by the Telephone Repair & Supply Company (TRS). It is what's referred to as a 'Dan Mac' phone. Dan Mac was Daniel McNulty. After WWII TRS took standard Gray coin collectors and larger manual 3-slots and rebuilt them for dial use. 

Unlike most of the homebrew hacked junk you see on Ebay, that payphone does have a place in history. It is an example of American ingenuity done at a time when new payphones were just begining to be manufactured after WWII and were in short supply. I'd leave the phone just the way it is.



Stan, when I took a closer look at the photos and saw the craftsmanship of the wiring harness, I thought about TR&S. Back in the day we purchased their refurb pieces when we had to furnish equipment to a subscriber and were on a tight budget.

I doubt very many of these were produced since most telcos were not anxious to provide free calls to their subscribers. When a few of these have popped-up through the years, even the more experienced collectors on the other lists were at a loss to identify who made these up.

As I have previously mentioned, except in the rare instance of high toll-traffic, there would have been no use for a coin collector that gave away free local calls. Most likely, most, if not all of them were made for the home novelty market.

Stan S

G-Man
Of course using that phone on a standard coin line would be illogical.

I have a feeling it was modified to be some sort of hotel phone. Lifting the receiver signalled the hotel's switchboard. The dial and coin drop were used after the switchboard made the connection to a coin line to the outside world.  From that point on, the call was operator assisted and pay as you go.  The hotel charged for the service on a per call basis.

A lot of work went into rebuilding that coin collector.  Seems like overkill to manufacture a novelty phone for home use.  Remember, it still needed a subset to function and wasn't legal to connect to the phone system back then.  If the phone had some sort of network and ringer inside- maybe.  The way it is, it seems to be a money making device that was probably fairly expensive at the time.

Who knows?
Stan

oyang

Thanks for this interesting discussion!  Are there pictures of others like mine?  This answers my original questions about how such a phone would have been used, i.e. being connected through an operator rather than a standard coin line.

I posted a picture on another board some time ago (I can't remember which now), and the response was that this was a mutilated 23D that I should "restore" back to original condition by removing the added parts.  Obviously, I don't intend to do that. I want to figure out how to add a mini network and get it working in its current configuration.  I'll be asking you guys for help on that after I map out all the current wiring.

Thanks,

Otto
"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they aren't."

oyang

Being the newbie that I am, I figured I would get access to all the wiring from inside the box, like the 202 and 50AL and 151AL I've rewired.  Well, I removed the coin chute only to find that all those wires disappear into little holes to go to the dial and transmitter, ha ha.  I could have accessed everything from the front.  Of course that makes sense that a repair should be done easily from the outside without so much disassembly. Oh well; I got a good lesson in Gray 23D anatomy.  Gray's Anatomy! 

It's a nice opportunity nonetheless to display the insides both for anyone who wants to repair one someday (I've not found any pictures online of one taken apart, probably because it isn't usually necessary for rewiring one!), and also to show you how nicely done the wiring is.  Maybe there is some hallmark of TR&S here?  Maybe the nicely tied string holding the wire bundle?  The insulating material for the terminals on the side of the phone turns out to be a recycled wooden ruler.  Waste not want not!

Otto
"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they aren't."

oyang

Also, does the identifier on the dial give a clue?  Of course, who knows if that is original, but it does say:

Coopersburg
3401
Answer 1 long Rings

("1 long" is handwritten). So I imagine this was on a party line somewhere.  Hotel? Boarding house? Prison? Hospital? Restaurant?  Office? Brothel?

Is there a way to see who had that number in Coopersburg?

Otto
"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they aren't."

oyang

#20
Fully disassembled it.... Pictures show that the added dial involved tapped holes, and the added dial was indeed a 4H, the transmitter an updated 635A bulldog. The receiver was an HA1.

I used a meter to check and confirm all wiring, and the diagram is attached.  So, now the questions:

1. If I wanted to add a regular subset, say a 634A, how would I do that?
2. If I wanted to add an AE mininetwork, how would I do that?
3. What was the original finish of this paystation? Clearly it was black, but the paint is so badly damaged I can't tell if it was glossy, satin, or matte. Despite how horrible it looks in the pictures, the rust is very superficial.  I had no trouble removing any of the screws; none of them were frozen by rust.  I think it will clean up nicely.
4. The rubber coating of the receiver cord was hardened to the point that I was able to chip it all off and expose the intact cloth cord underneath.  I saw some rubber spray in the hardware store; has anyone ever tried using that to recoat a cord?

Thanks in advance!

Otto
"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they aren't."

Jim Stettler

The simplest way to approach wiring is to think in terms of function. This means the transmitter goes to transmitter, receiver goes to receiver, pulsing dial contacts goes to the pulse ect.
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The AE mini networks are pretty simple to wire.
Here is a link for the diagrams.
http://www.telephonecollectors.info/index.php/document-repository/doc_details/1907-ae-mini-networks-n205-tl

I always used the House of Telephones diagram. It was the only diagram I had and it is simple to follow .  One  of the other diagrams show the 3 styles of the AE mini-networks .
The mini-networks were used in AE Styleline telephones.

ITT also had mini-networks. These were used in  newer 500/2500 sets. The nice thing about the ITT networks are the female spade terminal on the board. With the AE networks you need to splice wires. a good splice connection can be made with the screw terminals from a trimline base.
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I think these were typically gloss finish, but I am not sure. Some collectors approach is to make it pleasing to themselves vs historically accurate. It is your phone so you can finish it any way you like.
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I am a proponent of replacing non-repairable common  parts with new parts. So I would replace the cord with a new/NOS one.

I typically use the spare parts I have laying around the shop, and make a note of the "proper" part I need so I can try to locate it at a phone show. 

My typical approach  is get it up and running first, then work on making it "right" after I get the proper parts..

JMO,
Jim
You live, You learn,
You die, you forget it all.

G-Man

#22
Here is a photo of a cutaway 10L lock showing that it is unique in that it is opened by cuts on both sides of the key. This accounts for the innumerable unique combinations of keys and locks that are available.

The 10L lock was issued to independent telephone companies and the 12B was identical except for the corrugated keyway, and was issued to the Bell telcos.

Also, are the wires leading from the dial cloth or plastic insulated?
Thanks.

Quote from: G-Man on November 12, 2015, 12:00:52 AM
You are correct that lower-housing, vault-door locks are complicated. 10L locks were first manufactured by George Long, who besides being an officer of the Gray Paystation Company, started the Long Security Lock Company to manufacture payphone locks for both Gray and Western Electric.

10L corrugated keys have the upper-side cut to open wafers, while the lower front is cut to open pin-tumblers. Normally locks use either wafers or pin-tumblers, but not both!

Though a few have succeeded, they are generally considered to be unpickable by even the most skilled locksmiths. Of course your locksmith is correct that manuals exist for a lot of locks so they can be "Code-Cut" by referencing their number. However, as has been discussed throughout the years by industry insiders and collectors alike, those codes never left the factory and most likely were destroyed when the closed down.

If these codes were still available, then Paul and Jody would have been doing a land-office business cutting replacement keys for collectors. While it is highly improbable that someone else will find the same key in their collection, you might luck out.

As far as indexing photographs of these keys, there were many thousands of keying combinations, far too many to catalog.

Once we find out the actual model number of your instrument, several on this and other collector's list can offer advice on how to (hopefully) non-destructively remove your lock.

oyang

#23
Jim: Thanks for the advice.  It makes perfect sense, since in the end what is connected to what determines whether and how it works, rather than what terminal names are being used.  I'll start with the diagram for the mininetwork and work my way backwards in terms of what connections already exist, which are irrelevant, and which need to be made to achieve the final connections in the diagram.  What threw me off when I first tried to wire a phone was the terminology (Gn, Blk, BB, Y, etc).  It quickly dawned on me that the only relevantly consistent names are those that are directly soldered to the induction coil, and that most of the others are arbitrarily named floating connectors.

G-Man: Also thanks for the info.  I met Jody this weekend, who lives about 5 minutes from my in-laws.  He was super nice and helpful, and tried to under-charge me.  Fortunately I took your advice and left the retaining screws alone.  Turns out they were oriented from the inside pointing out, so an attempt to "unscrew" them from the outside would have been the wrong direction.  In the end, he tapped them out with a punch.  They went through surprisingly easily; I think the screw material is softer than the case material, so the threads of the case looked remarkably unharmed by pushing the screws through. The screws themselves even remain intact enough to be reused.  Once those two screws were pushed through, the coinbox dropped off the case (unfortunately there were no three-legged buffalo nickels in there). Jody then opened the lock by filing off the rivets that hold the two pins connecting the upper and lower plates as well as the wafers, and replaced the wafers to match the lock to an existing key. New pins and rivets were placed and the lock now works fine. Since there are only 3 pins, it is not hard to find a key that has the right pin configuration and he didn't need to alter the pins.  Of the 10 random 10L keys I had in my possession, 2 had the right fit for the pins already, so he just modified the wafers to match one of them.

In answer to your question, the added wires to the dial appear to be plastic covered.

The phone is now mostly disassembled (I left the coin bell and spring and switch in place as well as the front plate of the coin slots, since those will not involve the repainting, and I did remove the hook itself from the switch) so that I can sand off the rust and repaint it.  I'll go with a satin black.  Although.... it would be neat to try another color like olive green.  When I get the chance, I will post photos of the disassembled parts to document for future restorers.

Otto
"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they aren't."

oyang

Disassembly photos
"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they aren't."

oyang

More
"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they aren't."

oyang

More
"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they aren't."

oyang

Restoration thus far.  I wired in the mininetwork, but it's not working yet.  I need to figure out what I did wrong.....
"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they aren't."

Doug Rose

Otto....it looks fantastic!.....wonderful job!....Doug
Kidphone

WEBellSystemChristian

#29
Wow, looks great!!! Beautiful job!!!

I've always thought the 23 Grays were a little boring, but the dial makes this phone seem so cute and innocent-looking! ;)
Christian Petterson

"Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right" -Henry Ford