Battery case links and scans.
 

Folks,

Thanks to a friend in Sweden I was able to generate this artwork for a 9 Volt grid bias battery replica that you see here.

I only assume that this G.E.C. battery dates to the late 1920s. Please let me know if you know the correct date range for this graphic.

The perforated characters are - 493G

If you e-mail me directly I will send you the 800k file so that you can get it printed out on a laser color printer.

Previous to doing this artwork, I had found the Drydex 9 Volt artwork on the Web. But after seeing the scan and photos provided by my Swedish friend, I judged that there were too many errors in the graphic. However, I can now make a much more accurate Drydex 9 Volt graphic as time permits.

Robert

Battery case links and scans.
 

This is a thread where members can post scans of battery cases which other members can use when making replica batteries.

You can also post links to websites with battery case scans.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Here's a link to the Thompson-Brown family site where you'll find some battery scans:-

http://www.the-thompson-brown-family...eriesframe.htm

The above link no longer works, but it may be possible to access the scans via Wayback Machine for example:-

https://web.archive.org/web/20130805...pages/b136.htm

https://web.archive.org/web/20130805...pages/b126.htm

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Here's a scan of an Ever Ready flag cell.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

More scans here;-

http://www.royalsignals.org.uk/batteries/

and here:-

http://www.royalsignals.org.uk/kd4hsh/index.html

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

The best way to upload your scans here is in a ZIP file. They has a larger size limit and the images won't be resized by the forum software. You could attach a smaller image for illustration purposes along with the full size version in the ZIP file.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Ever Ready B131 scan courtesy of forum member Robert Darwent.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Herewith:-

• AD35
• B126 - two versions
• U11 - aka HP7/AA &c
• PP9 - unlike other scans floating about in cyber space, this one prints the right size.

- Joe

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Loads more here, including foreign ones: http://radionostalgia.club/lib/Images/battery/Unsorted/

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Ever Ready AD38 7½V LT Battery.

Re: New grid bias battery artwork available.
 

Hi,

That's a very nice piece of work. I'm building my first replica Drydex grid bias battery, and I wonder how you made the very realistic-looking red 'pitch' coating to the top of the battery? Was it coloured epoxy resin? It looks most professional. I am using 4mm I/D brass tubing for the contacts.

Many thanks,

Phil

Re: New grid bias battery artwork available.
 

Hi,

When I made that replica, I had not yet identified the source of 'red pitch'. I had 2 part urethane casting resin and the appropriate red dye to mix-up something that was pretty close. I later discovered where to obtain red pitch. It is used as a backing material for gold and silver tooling 'chasing'. You should be able to find a jewelry/metal-smithing supplier. It is sometimes called German pitch. If you see hardness grades listed, get the hardest grade. It melts at 115 to 130 C. You can do that with a heat lamp without damaging your graphic.

Hope this helps.

Within the month I will start on making 80 batteries for the RCA Radiolas of 1924-26. Each radio requires 8 or 11 batteries. A lot of work....

Robert

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Thanks for that information, very useful. German red pitch seems to be available from several suppliers, but it isn't cheap. Obviously if you are making large quantities of batteries it's worth buying the pitch in bulk.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

It is about $40 a kg here... Since that seems to be the only trade use now they get a premium price. It is a basic mixture of coniferous tree resin, tallow and finely ground brick dust. All apparently pretty cheap at least for the USA battery makers and their fabrication techniques of the day. With all the replicas I plan to make this year, I'd like to mix up my own.

The brick dust is not a problem, it is sold as a colorant for cast concrete and cement. Even in small quantities it is only about $6 a kg. Tallow is cheap. The tree resin.... Ah the tree resin... The issue is that I don't have a clue to what percentage is necessary. I never found any cook book for such stuff. No doubt it is/was a trade secret. So who knows how much time it would take to get the formula right.... AND that is AFTER I build a temperature controlled mixing vat....

Seems nothing I want to do is ever easy...

Robert

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

I have been studying a couple of original British-made grid bias batteries and noted that they are sealed with conventional black pitch. Fortuitously I have just come by a small quantity of pitch, salvaged from a dismantled 1939 capacitor can which contained about 100 grams of the stuff, so last night I did an experiment. I melted the pitch gently in a metal dish over a gentle flame until it was a runny consistency, and did a trial pour by spooning the liquid pitch into a crude mould made from two layers of masking tape wrapped around a wooden block. The results were perfect.

Care is needed to melt the pitch without causing bubbles of gas to form, but other than that I was surprised how easy the process was.

Bitumen roofing compound, the sort used by felt roof installers, appears to have very similar properties and is available online in 10kg blocks for just £11.30. Such a quantity will last several lifetimes but is really inexpensive and would be sufficient to make hundreds of batteries. I'm tempted to buy it anyway, at least I'll never run out!

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

The cheapest American made batteries of the early to mid 1920s attempted to use black pitch. There are only a few rare examples left. The manufacturing methods on your side of the Atlantic with sealed covers over the connections made the ugliness of the black pitch less of an issue at the point of sale. The Drydex graphics available to me seem to date from 1932. I wanted something earlier and so I went with the G.E.C. version which may well be atypical of the market there at the time. BUT since I was using an actual vintage artifact as reference, I had to stay true to the Red pitch scheme. I still don't have solid information from which to date my G.E.C. replica.

Battery wrappers
 

Greetings, I have acquired some dry batteries with sets I bought and wondered if anyone wants a scan of them. They are a B126 and AD35 Ever Ready, an AD 39 Ever Ready and a B129 85volt which I haven't managed to free from the dead cell. I can scan hi-res which will be probably too big for here so I might have to send be email. Anyway, I guess they're pretty common but somebody may need one of the. Cheers, Paperboy

Batterywrappers2
 

Attached are images of scans.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Well... These batteries appear to be too new for me... (I'm looking for graphics from before 1935.) BUT I'm glad to see you taking the time to post graphics that may not be available from any other source at present.

BTW - Did you do a Google Images search on your graphics?

Keep looking and keep posting....

Robert

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Ref. Red or German pitch seal for batteries.
I remember a red dental moulding compound which looked the same and is less messy to use. Sets very quickly and should be available in small quantities.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

It's a bit expensive though, Sam, at £14 per 200 grams:

http://dentala2z.co.uk/PRE10043

(Other brands and suppliers are available)

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Wow! so dear? Time to befriend a dental techy.
I used it many years ago but wasn't paying for it. There is the advantage that it can be removed easily.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Mallory TR-115R 6.75 volt mercury battery case scan attached.

This is a small cylindrical battery used in some 1960s test equipment, and I'm trying to replicate it using modern available button cells. As the filename states, to print this image reduce the size to 20%. The overall size of the finished battery should be 16.7mm diameter by 35.5mm long, including the domed cap at the negative end.

Phil

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Hope these for the PP8 6V battery are OK.

(If the thumbnail is opened, and the opened picture is copied and saved, it should come out the correct size, as stated on the side tabs of each picture - 257 mm full length).

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Newer style PP8.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

U2, aka SP2, HP2, D.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Unfortunately the very useful Thompson Brown Family site (post 3) seems to no longer be online.

Les.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

That is a shame. Those battery scans were very useful.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

The link I gave in Post 9 also seems to no longer work.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Number 8 3 Volt Every Ready Battery design attached. (Not a actual 'scan' but a replica I created using a poor scan as a basis).

The printed size should be 7.5cm high x 7.78 cms wide.

The orientation of the label when applied should be as shown in the picture.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

There are three battery case graphics on my web page:
http://www.vintageradioworld.co.uk/battery_decals.htm

I call them graphics because they are not actual scans but recreations from original cases. The batteries (all HT/LT types are: Ever Ready B136, B103. GEC BB503.
The above link takes you to a page where there's details of copying and producing the cases. At the foot of that page you will find the links to each battery.

Tony

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Thanks David!

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Thanks David and Tony, excellent!

Re: Ever Ready B121 (BLR121) or the later B154 (BLR154) battery scans
 

Pictures are not of course scans, but using the pictures above I created what I hope will be a passable replica B121 label. To size the label I made a 'dummy battery' from wood to the 'official' dimensions of a B121, which is 37.3mm tall, 26.2mm wide, and 16mm thick and have created the label based on those dimensions. I've attached the artwork, and some (not very well focused) pics of the label stuck on the 'dummy'.

As always, as printers have a mind of their own, you might have to re-size the image in Photoshop or whatever, to print out at 87mm long x 37mm high.

Hope that might help.

Re: Ever Ready B121 (BLR121) or the later B154 (BLR154) battery scans
 

Again, I couldn't find a decent scan but based on various images, I've created a label which I hope will suffice.

I've used fonts as close as I could find to the original Ever Ready fonts.

I used a Pound Shop D cell to size the label but the top of the battery has a 5mm red rim which the Ever Ready label won't cover. The pics below will make clear what I mean. Don't know if that matters, but just in case, I've attached two labels, one of which is taller than the other at the top edge. This allow the label to be trimmed to the desired height and snipped at say 3mm intervals so that the upper edge can be folded over and glued to cover the rim of the battery.

If all that's required is to cover the side - not the top end, the 55mm high label should be fine. Printers have a mind of their own, so I've shown the dimensions that each printed label needs to be. I assume the label would be printed off and glued to the D Cell using Pritt or whatever, then discarded when a new cell is needed, with a new label printed off.

Pic 1: Normal height label.
Pic 2: Label with wider blue edge at top.
Pic 3: Normal label applied to a D Cell showing red rim of cell visible.
Pic 4: taller label applied to D Cell with the top edge snipped every few mm to be bent over.
Pic 5: Top edge bent over and glued to cover red rim of D Cell.

I only printed it off on copy paper at normal print quality and glued it with Pritt to illustrate what I mean - not as an exemplar of what a 'pimped up' D Cell should ideally look like. It could be printed to a higher quality, fitted more neatly and sprayed with auto clear lacquer.

Hope that's useful.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Sizes: https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...09&postcount=1

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

With help again from David G4EBT I've managed a first attempt at wrapping a modern D cell battery with an Ever Ready scan - not bad?

Attachment 182933

Next on the list is the 15V B121 !

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

U2 (SP2/D) — Better version than the one I posted above
U11 (SP11/C)
U16 (HP16/AAA)

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Recreation of an early PP9.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

It was a great resource, but I don't suppose anyone took over the information on that site when it closed.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Isn't there an internet archive site somewhere? Perhaps it's there?

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

There is, Graham; it's called The Wayback Machine. Sadly it's a bit hit and miss as to what works with it and what doesn't.

Here's an old-style PP3. I'm not claiming historical accuracy for any of my reproductions as I'm too young to have ever seen originals but they certainly looks more in keeping with vintage equipment than modern ones.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Well done! It's here:-

https://web.archive.org/web/20180729...eriesframe.htm

Appears to be incomplete. I haven't checked earlier snapshots.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Maybe the site is on the Google archive.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

The now dead link I gave in Post 9 now seems to be http://www.radionostalgia.ca/lib/Ima...tery/Unsorted/

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Yes, it is unfortunately a bit of a mess - a number of the images are missing, and none of the enlargements (the real purpose of the site for printing the scans) are available. What a shame.

Well done for finding it though.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Thanks for that.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

Old-style No8 and 1289.

I THINK the No8 is the correct size but don't have a battery to check it against to make certain.

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

PP4 (later round version).

Re: Battery case links and scans.
 

The PP4 scan is very interesting, thanks for posting it. The problem for anyone trying to replicate such a cell must be to achieve a realistic mAh capacity in a cylindrical shape. PP4s were originally presumably of layer construction using circular rather than rectangular disc cells. Perhaps circular DEAC cells could be used.

Has anyone actually managed successfully to construct a replica PP4? I have a piece of test gear that took three of them.