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My Phone Collection - Stephen Furley

Started by Stephen Furley, August 16, 2009, 02:35:25 PM

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Stephen Furley

I'm going to post some pictures of the 'phones in my collection.  These are just quick snaps taken with a digital camera borrowed from work, which I haven't worked out how to use properly yet, but it does give much better pictures than my mobile 'phone camera.

Let's start off with the older British ones.  In the first picture we have the three old, i.e. before the 706 was introduced, telephones in my collection, the 150 candlestick, the 232 pyramid, and the 328 from the 300 series.  The other three pictures show the 150, from the front and the side, and its bellset.  Note that my mouthpiece is a different shape to Dan's; mine is the later design.

The screwdriver under the bellset is to stop it tilting forwards, the backboard extends below the bottom of the box.  The thin wires on the right are from the reproduction line cord; the thick ones on the left are from the original, or at least old, bellset cord.  Two of the cloth bindings, the black, actually very dark brown, one on the whole cord, and the red one on the top wire, are new; the very dark green and white ones on the other two wires are original.  I had to cut off the original binding on the cord itself to get to the red wire which had been cut back to the very edge of it.  I re-created this wire using strands of copper wire from some mains flex, strips of cotton cloth cut from an old bed-sheet, cotton thread fom the local sewing shop, and beeswax.  It doesn't look perfect, but it's not too bad.  When I can work out how to do macro with this camera I'll post a picture of the repair.

Stephen Furley

#1
Next comes the 232, I've almost finished restoring this,

The first picture shows the telephone. its bellset, and the parts required to convert it into a 'combined set'  The next one shows the drawer open.  I didn't have an original dialing code card for it, so I printed out one from a website on buff coloured card.  The one I chose was from an exchange in the Dean Valley, in a part of England close to the border with Wales.  I chose this one for two reasons, the print on it was clearer than on some of the others, and one of the codes listed is for Stroud in Gloucestershire, the town that my father came from.

To mount the two parts as a combined set you have to remove the base from the telephone and the cover from the bellset, as in the third photograph.  You should then replace the bellset cord with the short one shown; to save time I didn't bother doing this step just for the photograph.  The strange screws have two threads, a small one near the tip, then an unthreaded gap, then a larger thread, and then another gap before the head.  There's also an internal thread in the head, which is the same as the smaller one.  The cover of the bellset is secured with two screws through the cover into the metal behind.  In this case the bellset has plain screws, but the special ones could be used instead, as they were on early versions; the larger thread would then be used, with the smaller one near the tip doing nothing.  If the screws are removed, the special ones can be inserted from the other side of the bellset; the smaller thread can just pass through the hole, and the larger one screwed through, and out the other side, so that the screws are now captive, but not actually screwed into anything, the thread in the bellset being in the gap between the larger thread and the head of the screws.  The cover of the bellset is then replaced, there is nothing to hold it in place, but the screws stick up through the holes in it.  The telephone is then placed on top, and the smaller threads at the tip of the screws screwed into the holes where the base was previously fitted.  The cover is now clamped between the telephone and the bellset itself.  Finally, the base is attached to be base of the bellset, the screws which previously attached it to the telephone now going into the internal threads in the heads of the special screws.  It's really difficult to get this back on, and when you finally manage it you realise that you forgot something.  The drawer won't open; the top edge of it is trapped inside the bellset cover.

At this point you swear at the thing before removing the base again, and open the drawer slightly before re-fitting it so that the draw closes against the outside of the bellset cover.  It now looks like the next picture.  I've dragged the normal bellset cord around to the back of the telephone, so that it looks like it would if I had fitted the short one, something of a mess.

To show what a huge great lump of a thing this actually is, the last picture shows it between a 302, and a 300 series, itself a very large 'phone.  No wonder the GPO gave up on this idea, and started supplying the 300 series when a combined set was required.

There's not much to be said about the 300 series, and in particular my 328, it's in the last picture here, and also in the comparison with the 302 which I wrote.  It's the same as the standard 332, but with bell on/off buttons added for use as an extension 'phone.

Dennis Markham

Stephen, those are very beautiful telephones.  I especially like the 232 and also the stick phone with the bellset.  It does look huge next to the 302.  Those are very elegant telephones.  Thank you for posting those photos and telling us about them.  That is a very interesting design for that 232, having the ability to combine the bell or keep it separate.  I kind of like the look of it by itself.

Dan/Panther

Stephen;
Very impressive collection in deed.
D/P
Great photos also.

The More People I meet, The More I Love, and MISS My Dog.  Dan Robinson

foots

That is impressive. I especially like the 232. You've got some really nice stuff.
"Ain't Worryin' 'Bout Nothin"

McHeath

Majorly nice phones!  And all so shiney!  That WE 302 looks like a baby phone next to the big GPO models. 

Stephen Furley

#6
Those three telephones are all of my 'older' British ones, i.e. before the 706.

I've got two older American models in working order, WE 302 and AE40.  I've also got the other 302, in far from working order, and these will hopefully soon be joined by the Kellogg 1000 'Clearbar'.  The WE and AE models are in the first picture below, and I've put up several more pictures of the Kellogg in the 'Look what I've just bought' thread in the 'Auctions' section.  Two more should be joining the collection soon; watch this space.

The next picture shows my three 'new', i.e. WE 500 and its contemporaries.  I have a WE 500, AE 80 and SC 1543.  The AE 80 has had a bit of a clean-up recently, and is now looking much more like the white that it is supposed to be.

The last two pictures are of the CMC Trub-L-Shooter.  I've had to take two pictures to show both sides of it.  This isn't very happy at the moment; the dial needs looking at.

Although it's not finished yet I've decided to add a picture of the Kellogg 1000 'Clearbar' here.  It's certainly come on a long way from how it looked on Sunday night.

By the way, that's not my telephone equipment in the background of the picture; it's all part of the Mitel 3300 system which I look after at work.  I can post some pictures of it if anybody is interested.  I was working on the Kellogg in the PABX room after work this evening.

Stephen Furley

Quote from: Dennis Markham on August 17, 2009, 10:49:08 AM
Stephen, those are very beautiful telephones.  I especially like the 232 and also the stick phone with the bellset.  It does look huge next to the 302.  Those are very elegant telephones.  Thank you for posting those photos and telling us about them.  That is a very interesting design for that 232, having the ability to combine the bell or keep it separate.  I kind of like the look of it by itself.

The 232 seems to be a very popular 'phone; I definitely prefer it not mounted on the bellset, but I wanted to get the parts, so I can set it up either way.

When I first saw a 302, when the demolition worker handed me the one that I saw in Camden, NJ, I was surprised at how small, and how heavy it was.

ntophones

--nto

Stephen Furley

#9
Which ones? The 150, 328, WE 500 and AE 40 are pretty much as they came to me.

The 302 is metal-bodied, and I didn't want to loose the original paintwork, so I just touched in a few missing bits with a black marker pen, and went over it with a bit of wax polish.

The 232 was a total strip-down, Bakelite polished up with Paste Polishing No. 5, which is what the GPO used to use, then finished with Greygate plastic polish, made by the same people as the paste.  The handset cradle on the 232 is made of cellulose acetate, and the instructions on the plastic polish warn against using it on that material; I've got to find something else.  Same treatment on the Bakelite handsets on the 302 and SC 1543, but as I mentioned in another thread, the British Bakelite seems to be of a higher quality than the American, and takes a better polish, though the AE 40 is similar; I just gave that a quick wipe over with a rag with a bit of plastic polish on it.  The handset on the SC 1543 seems to be the worst; it just doesn't seem to polish up well; seems to have less resin and more filler in it, and I think the filler is Asbestos, rather than wood flour.

For ABS I've found nothing better than Brasso, sometimes followed up with a bit of the plastic polish.  I've also tried Brasso recently on the body of the SC 1543, which is acetate, and it seems to work ok, but that 'phone was very dull, and it really needs another go.  Unlike with Bakelite, with ABS the American product seems to be superior to the British one, which yellows very badly, and very deeply; no amount of polishing will remove it.  My white AE 80 in contrast came up much whiter with a bit of Brasso.

The Trub-L-Shooter is a strange plastic; I'm not sure what it is.  I tried Paste Polishing No. 5 which brought it up better than it was, but it's had a hard life, and hasn't come up that well.  The strange thing is that the cord on it is original; the inner insulation is quite worn and faded where it's exposed, but the outer black cotton was absolutely like new, not a hint of wear or even a speck of dust, anywhere.  It looked better than the new cords on my 302, which are only about a month old, but already don't look quite new.

HobieSport

I just want to say thank you Stephen for the last photo of the WE 302 alongside the AE 40.
-Matt

Stephen Furley

Quote from: HobieSport on August 18, 2009, 08:05:54 PM
I just want to say thank you Stephen for the last photo of the WE 302 alongside the AE 40.

Which do you prefer?

McHeath


foots

Nice 1543. Brasso really does work well on ABS doesn't it?
"Ain't Worryin' 'Bout Nothin"

Stephen Furley

The 1543 is soft plastic, not ABS, but Brasso seems to work on both.  The solvent in it has a rather strong smell.  Paste Polishing No. 5 does seem better on Bakelite, but it dries rather quickly, and can leave a powdery deposit.  I find it's best to work quickly with it, use a very small amount and work on just a small area at a time, maybe 50x100mm, then polish off with a clean cloth before it dries.

The 1543 isn't very good yet, but it's getting better.  It's never going to ring though, it's got a 60 Hz. ringer.  I tried putting 60 Hz. at about 55 V on it, and it did ring, but it won't on our standard of 25 Hz. 75V.