Anybody ever painted a phone?

There was a wall mount phone made back in the 60s called the "Space Saver". I really like these phones and have looked for a long time for a pastel green one. I did find one but it is inside a restaurant and they aren't gonna sell it, seeing as how it was added for the decor and isn't even connected. So I bought a black one on eBay today and when it arrives I want to paint it. Anybody here ever done this? I have looked at reviews online and they all seem to be ads more than reviews. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks, Eric

Reply to
etpm
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Krylon makes spray paint specifically for painting plastic surfaces. Take some carbide sand paper and scuff the shine off first for a better result.

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"I am a river to my people." 
Jeff-1.0 
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Reply to
Fox's Mercantile

Agreed. That's probably the easy and right way to do it.

However, following convention is not my idea of fun. Instead, I suggest using fabric dye made for coloring synthetic (usually plastic) materials. The bad news is that it's easy to dye a light colored plastic to something darker, but not the other way around. Dark colored plastics will need to be painted.

It might be a bit tricky testing the dye process if you only have a single telephone. Worse, the handset might be made from a different plastic from the instrument case. Anyway, if using dye fails, you could always try again using paint.

Drivel: My father was in the petticoat and lingerie manufacturing business. All the material was mostly nylon. We discovered that we could save quite a bit of money on material if we bought white nylon net and thread, and then dyed them whatever colors were needed. So, my mother and I spent countless hours at the kitchen sink dyeing white nylon into about 10 basic colors. Also, during the cold war era, there was a demand for red "hot line" phones. Somehow, I didn't think of trying to make one by painting or dyeing a phone red.

Good luck.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

In Europe, there are some kind of "socks"" that can fit the exact form of the phone. Some are made out of velvet. Color is your choice. The advantage is reversibility.

Reply to
Look165

Too bad it's a black phone.

Reply to
etpm

Oh well. It will probably need to be done with paint.

Here's a telephone paint job: Rust-Oleum Ultra Cover 2X pint.

Or paint it pink: "Retro telephone DIY makeover using Rust-oleum candy pink spray paint" Rust-oleum spray paint and surface primer.

Or, purple: Rust-oleum Ultra Cover 2X primer and spray paint. Yuck.

Apparently, repainting phones is a sufficiently popular pastime that can support at least one service company:

There are various shades of red available. It might be useful to check the Pantone and Fed-STD-595 color chips and charts for the correct shade of red. Actually, I'm not certain if there is a color standard for the old hotline phones.

Also, be careful painting the vinyl coil cord. If the paint layers are too thick, the paint might crack or flake when the coil cord is extended.

Good luck.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Yow, is that a DIAL phone?

It's a good idea to use that Krylon paint (Fusion?) intended for plastic, and removing the shell before painting will help. I'd consider a water-wash (and maybe add some dishwasher detergent or a teaspoon of lye to the wash water, to get the inevitable fingerprints off), followed by a long air-dry (give it a couple of days) before painting, and start with an opaque (aluminum would be good) light color undercoat before the pastel final coat. Spray paint coverage will make it look blotchy otherwise.

Does your telephone exchange still accept dial phone input? I've not seen such in use in the recent decades.

Reply to
whit3rd

Might be worth looking for a new handset cord of the right color.

Reply to
Frank

AT&T was going to charge extra for DTMF dialing. The FCC stepped in. They made a deal with the devil. (AT&T) You can charge for DTMF, BUT....You will continue to accept pulse dialing forever. MagicJack won't accept pulse dialing, however, AT&T does as well as my Asterisk PBX. Which is great, I have an original Stromberg Carlson candle stick phone with a rotary dial. It works "just fine."

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Reply to
Fox's Mercantile

Or, just replace it with a non-curly handset cord: Looks like those were mostly available only in black.

Or, cracking might not be a problem: ... acrylic paint is very elastic, which prevents cracking from occurring. Acrylic paint's binder is acrylic polymer emulsion - as this binder dries, the paint remains flexible. I guess the easiest way to find out is to paint a different coil cord and see what happens.

"How to Paint Flexible Plastic"

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

U-Verse voice, cable internet gateways, Magic Jack, and VoIP adapters will NOT work with a rotary dial phone. However, there are dial pulse to DTMF adapters available for about $40:

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Good Grief! Who knew there would be this much interest? Anyway, I did find an outfit that sells handset cords of various colors and maybe I can paint the phone to match the color cord I like. Thanks for all the info Jeff. Eric

Reply to
etpm

For the impatient, those are a problem. Nothing worse than waiting for pizza, cabs, or hookers..

Reply to
John-Del

IME telcos here say no they don't support pulse dial, but in reality many exchanges do, not all.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

My previous Comcast cable box worked on pulse. Newer one doesn't.

Greg

Reply to
gregz

You're cable box isn't the phone company.

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"I am a river to my people." 
Jeff-1.0 
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Reply to
Fox's Mercantile

It might have been able to make an outgoing phone call, but I doubt it has a way to dial "*" or "#". Perhaps a 12 digit dial? Notice that all the features require at least a "*":

"Telephone Keys Used with Xfinity Voice Features" "Rotary telephones are not compatible with Xfinity Voice service."

In 1996, Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which deregulated the telephone industry, thus allowing them to remove or ignore the requirement to support pulse dialing. I vaguely recall that this was about the time when support of pulse dialing rapidly disappeared in both instruments and at the exchanges. However, companies that have an international market for their devices seem to have continued to support pulse dialing, at least until all the exchanges have upgraded their equipment:

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

A simple solution to pulse dialling phones is to use an old answerphone remote control. Just dial your number on that instead.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

I hope you're not suggesting acoustic coupling. Over the years, I've owned various "tone dialer" boxes: Mostly, I used them to couple into a 2way radio microphone to control a repeater or to simulate DTMF paging. When I attempted to acoustically couple any of these devices to the telephone mouthpiece in order to dial a number, I would get misdials, erratic dialing, and a general failure to cooperate. Just like the bad old days of Anderson Jacobson acoustically coupled 300 baud modems, it didn't work very well. I had one device that plugged into the phone line via an RJ-11 jack, which did work reliably.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Back in the day I used to have no trouble using acoustic coupling (that's tones right?) to get free long distance from pay phon..e....s. er, I take that back. I used to hear about people using tones to get free long distance. Someone called Cap'n Crunch I think. I mean, the info was available in passed around mimeographed sheets all over my highschool campus. Anybody coulda done it. Anonymous

Reply to
etpm

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