Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Cleaning Bakelite Telehones (and plastic phones)

After years of practice I believe the best way to clean Bakelite and plastic Telephones is as follows:
Carefully dismantle the telephone as much as possible. Then
  1. Clean the Bakelite with a good non abrasive chrome cleaner such as autochrome. Working the cleaner into the telephone in a circular motion.
  2. The next stage and most important stage is to use "paste polishing number 5" from greygate chemical products specifically designed for cleaning Bakelite telephones.
  3. Finish with a good quality "carnauda" car wax (that containing no silicones)
At each stage use plenty of elbow grease and patience. For the final polish use a clean cotton duster
Please let me know if you ever find a better way to clean Bakelite phones. or have any useful information about old British telephones.

2 comments:

GPO706 said...

Excellent post, what advise do you have for cleaning plastic 7xx series phones esp dealing with 'browning'?

Rosiedaydream said...

Hi!

I recently bought a Black Bakelite telephone which is in a beautiful shiny condition, but felt the hand set needed a bit of a buff. I used paste no 5 and it has left it with a dull yellow tinge. What can I do? Would you give me some advice?

Thank you

Fix for a Slow dial on 746 Telephones and 706 Telephones

Vintage 746 telephone and 706 telephone dials are lovely high quality mechanical devices (similar in many ways to antique clocks) however be...