[David Dunlop]

I decided this morning to bite the bullet and see how easily I could remove the Negative Cable from the Bakelite Socket Assembly. It came out surprisingly easy compared to the Positive Cable the other day.

One tap on the wooden dowel and it popped back about one half inch and I could easily grab it and wiggle it free. It had accumulated about the same amount of salts build-up on the plating but I think the big difference in getting the two cables free was they were very tightly pressed together and the cording on both was in tight contact, thereby adding significantly to the resistance load. So the Positive one being first put up more of a fight.

As per the first photo, the excess salts have now been cleaned from the Negative Cable terminal socket.

The other two photos show the Bakelite Socket Assembly before and after getting cleaned up. Note that you can now easily see the ribbed outside surfaces of the brass screw fittings that were pressed into the Bakelite to provide a secure threaded connection for the four mounting screws of the front cover plate. When those were pressed into the brand new Bakelite 80 years ago, you can be sure they added a stress load to the surrounding Bakelite that probably has not diminished much over the years. The Bakelite will have aged significantly and it might not take much additional stress load for it to break around these small brass fittings today. Always a good idea to keep that in mind when tightening those 4-40 x ½-inch screws.

The other thing I noticed is the central hole in the Bakelite Socket assembly the long Clamping Screw passed through. Note the rough, broken rim. I found a small piece of broken Bakelite inside this assembly and the only place it could have come from is that rim. I will post a photo of it later as I think that originally on these sockets a tubular shaft may have been caste to guide the Clamping Screw passing through the socket.


David