Old crank, dead batteries, and how to age a screw

Today is the 165th birthday of Alexander Graham Bell. Considering that “Bell has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history,” you might think that he might rate a Google Doodle as Rossini did a a few days ago. But you’d be wrong. Perhaps Bell was too American for comfort.

Anyway, I’m an old crank, but not as old as the old crank I’ve been working on.

If you look closely, you will see that the old crank is cracked.

The crank is from an ancient wall phone I picked up for forty bucks the other day. It’s complete, but had numerous issues. The backboard was split through, and a 3/8″ crack ran all the way from top to bottom. I double clamped it, squirted in Gorilla Glue, and forced the crack all the way closed. The next day I removed the clamps, scraped off the hardened foam that extrudes when Gorilla Glue cures, and the once-cracked area is now stronger than the rest of the wood (which I gently cleaned and mildly “refinished” by rubbing with a lemon juice/olive oil mix). The transmitter mount was also cracked — into two pieces. As it’s made of cast iron which is tough to weld, I decided to clean it up with a wire brush and resort to Gorilla Glue again. Amazingly, the repair has held, and it looks like it might just last, especially once it is screwed back down.

Of the four screws which had held it to the case, only one was original round head; there were only two others and they were flat headed wood screws — wrong, wrong wrong! So I bought some shiny new round-headed wood screws from the hardware store and threw them in a jar of vinegar. To age them, of course. The result is nothing short of amazing; even an expert would be fooled.

I believe in having traditional screws, and if I can’t have them, then I will have to make them look old artificially by screwing with their age.

As to the old crank, it has come loose where the handle mounts to the shaft so it spins around, so it will have to be either welded or brazed. What? You don’t expect me to buy a new crank for my old phone, do you?

Here’s a view of the inside:

(How it works is explained here in detail.)

The batteries are dated December 5, 1942. They can be replaced by modern flashlight batteries but how far I want to go with modernization is a good question. Even if I get the phone into fully operational condition, I don’t have a land line to plug it into. The closest thing I have is a Magic Jack in my USB port. Imagine plugging it into that and then calling customer service to ask them to step me through….

(“You ad said this would work with any phone! I can’t even get it to dial out!”)

What a crank call that would be.

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Alexander Graham Bell!