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Other Vintage Household Electrical or Electromechanical Items For discussions about other vintage (over 25 years old) electrical and electromechanical household items. See the sticky thread for details.

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Old 6th Feb 2012, 1:24 am   #121
Craig Sawyers
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Default Re: Perils of the 1950s household.....

The older systems were truly horrendous. I well remember our house being rewired in about 1970. The original wiring had been in there since the house was built in 1930, and was pretty lethal. And everything was wired with fabric insulated mains cable, the inner insulation of which was crumbling. At age 14 my Dad showed me how to correctly wire a (new-style!) 3 pin mains plug.

Somewhat later, my wife-to-be's father was in the fire service, eventually becoming Chief of Lothian and Borders. But he had zero capability in electrics, rather surprising given his profession. Many mains wires were bodged with insulating tape, much to my horror, with insulation stripped back well beyond the wire clamp and so forth. He was a real dragon though, so at age 18 I wasn't minded to point out the lethality and fire hazard of his appliance wiring!

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Old 6th Feb 2012, 1:34 am   #122
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Default Re: Perils of the 1950s household.....

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Originally Posted by Peter.N. View Post
A lot of places were like that in the '50s, people used to repair their TVs on the kitchen table with the help of 'Practical Television' never heard of anyone being electrocuted though. I like the sound of that Hammond organ.

Peter
Our first TV after we were married was given to us by our landlady - big wooden cabinet affair with opening doors at the front, valved and 405 line of course. Not working. Problem turned out to be the big wirewound resistor in series with the mains - open circuit. So I off-wound it and measured the resistance of the two lengths of wire so I could replace it with the right value. Worked perfectly until they turned off 405.

And much to my wife of 34 years chagrin, I still use the kitchen table to work on things, in spite of having plenty of workbenches - which are of coure too cluttered to work on!

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Old 6th Feb 2012, 10:27 am   #123
Peter.N.
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Default Re: Perils of the 1950s household.....

I do still have a workshop but doubt if health and safety would allow me to work in it now.

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