As part two in this series of refurbishing a Western Electric model 354 wall phone I thought I would begin with the phone’s dial. After completely disassembling the phone I like to place the parts in plastic containers according to groups. For example all the dial related parts go in one container, the ringer assembly in another, the handset components in yet another, etc. This helps me to keep from mixing screws or losing pieces. Especially on a phone such as this model 354 which I have never completely disassembled. On model 500’s I could throw all the pieces into a big pile and know exactly what each screw does and where it goes. That is because I’ve done it so many times. Read the rest of this post »

My latest project is a wall phone. This model 354 was made by Western Electric in September of 1952—just short of fifty-six years ago. It has held up pretty well over the years. I have no idea about its history but it does not appear to have been mistreated, but the surrounding walls had at least one coat of paint applied while this phone hung near-by. It has a pretty good coating of paint speckles, an issue that will not be difficult to correct. But I’ve decided to tear it down and give it a good cleaning. The process has begun. I thought I would share some of the steps that it will go through along the way. As always here are a couple of “before” photos showing what the phone looks like “as removed from service”. Read the rest of this post »

Ok, so it’s not quite like this any more. Operators may not be standing by to make your connection as depicted in this circa 1920’s photograph. I thought I would make a posting today that may be a bit off topic. I would like to wish fathers everywhere a Happy Father’s Day. For those that are still fortunate enough to have fathers in their lives, pick up the phone—-rotary, touch-tone or even a cell phone— and give Dad a call. Happy Father’s Day!

As part of the refurbish process I like to clean up all of the parts, including the ringer assembly. As I have written in the past, one never knows what lurks inside the nice hollow cavity of the ringer gongs. In the early days of my cleaning experiences, I would remove whatever parts I could remove from the phone. I would clean those parts the best I could and put things back together again. Now I am talking here about the C4A ringer of the Western Electric model 500 desk phone and the wall phone version, the model 554. On a couple of occasions I had removed the small bar-stock looking magnet that rides on the back of the ringer bell assembly. It didn’t take me long to figure out that I was doing more harm that good by removing the magnet so I stopped doing that. I didn’t know why it wasn’t good, but I knew it made some effect on the performance of the ringer. Read the rest of this post »