Shell Molds/Plastic Dies from WECo Factories?

[segaloco]

I'm curious, are there any original telephone shell production molds, dies, tools, machines, etc. that have been properly salvaged and preserved from back in the Western Electric days?  I'm thinking like the molds used to actually make things like bodies, handsets, modular connectors, etc. all that plastic that was involved in making telephones.  I know some outfits still produce phones with the 500, Trimline, and other form factors.  Something I wonder often is how that design was actually transmitted, be it folks would license design schematics from WECo and design/procure their own industrial equipment to press/inject things, if there was some external party making 500 and 2500-style shells for everyone, or something else.  Would there be any relationship between say, a modern factory's tools for making a 2500 shell vs back then?  The guts and technology are subject to change, but the actual aesthetic designs seem to be replicated all over.

In short, does anyone have the scoop on the actual line machinery/components used back in the day when making the plastic, aesthetic aspects of Western Electric telephones?

[jsowers]

Here's one interesting article with two pictures I have, from Southern Telephone News, which was a Southern Bell magazine for employees. It shows a man polishing a handset mold and there's an accompanying article. I don't have the exact year, but I think it's from 1958 because I have other scans from one of those magazines from then.

I don't know what happened to the molds, but I can imagine the metal was recycled into new molds. They wasted very little at Western Electric.

[segaloco]

Oh cool, I've actually seen a magazine ad touting one of those dies, heck it's the thing that lead to enough curiosity to ask.  Sounds about right on the likelihood things were sent to Nassau and melted down...that's the same fate I fear for most WECo factory equipment.  There's a small part of me that hopes any of the machinery used to produce 3B20s survived, but I'm starting to suspect it was all scrapped/recycled...

[TelePlay]

The injection molding specs are impressive, 400F plastic injected at 5 tons psi into molds mounted in a 400 ton press producing 120 to 140 units an hour. Can you imagine the support equipment needed to  feed colored plastic pellets in the right proportion to get the desired color into the pressurized melting pot to be melted and mixed together before being pressure injected into the molds. Had to be huge equipment to produce at that rate before another batch was mixed (and all those color changeover swirled pieces).

[MMikeJBenN27]

We used to be the envy of the world.  There was NOTHING that we couldn't produce, and NOBODY could make them as good as we could for the same price.  Canada being the exception, as they always made the same things as us.  All gone now.

Mike

[AL_as_needed]

My father worked for a batch supplier of plastics to be used in injection molding, blow molding, and drawn film for most of his working life. So plastics was a common topic in my parents house.

Injection molds / dies do have a service life (depending in the composition of the plastic used) and are changed out as they wear. Same goes for the extrusion equipment. So molds/dies being scrapped out was a normal occurrence. There is an entire partner industry that works just to service injection molding dies and the cutting of new dies. It's more than likely that most dies / molds were already in a state that was less than ideal when a line was shut down. Why retool when there is a closing scheduled months in advance?

....But.... while cost prohibitive, if you have an item you'd want to make on such a line, molds can be produced to make darn near anything off an accurate prototype. Of course, economies of scale is a huge factor.