Repair & Restoration Questions for Alarm Equipment

[Ed Vining]

Is it really a punch register or a shasher register.  Punches often hang up because of punch wear.  Paper jams between the punch and the die.

Watch oil is a good lubricant, but I have used WD40.  It will thin out any heavy oil someone has used on the mechanism.

as your register will get very little wear, heavy, or even machine oil is not needed.


Ed Vining

[jbc]

Ed
Thank you for the reply. It is a slasher.....I believe. Triangular slashes punch out on the tape. I am not too smart on this stuff, just very appreciative of it.

What points should be oiled?

Thanks for your help.

Jeff

[Ed Vining]

I would do the easy stuff first.  

Make sure the spring is sufficiently wound.  I would hate to think it is just run down.

Chances are the register has been oiled, and is just a bit gummed up.  Squirt a bit of WD 40 in a receptacle like a shot glass.  Turn the register on its side with the reel down.  With a toothpick or cue tip, apply a tiny bit of WD 40 to each of the shaft ends on that side.  Exercise the register, and see if it runs better.  If not, or not enough, take off the reel assembly and the shasher dust cover.  WD 40 the shaft ends on that side.

If it is still sluggish, remove the top glass and try putting a bit of WD 40 on the visible gears.  And if that doesn't do it, try squirting WD 40 on the drum betwen the two big gears.  If that doesn't do it, my only suggestion would be to take it to someone who knows registers intimately, or a clock repair shop.

Whatever you do, don't try to take the register apart!!  Bad things will happen.

Ed

[jbc]

Ed,
Thanks a bunch for the help. It will be my Sunday project. It will hurt alot less than playing paintball, which my youngest Son wants me to do. The kids seem to delight at shooting poor dad and seeing all those red welts that I would carry for days!

I promise I will NOT attempt to take the register apart. Bad things ALWAYS happen when I attempt to "fix" anything.  I am much safer with an axe and halligan tool than a wrench and screw driver.

One more question: How about lube for the gongs? I have a 10" Gamewell center chain-wind chrome (not the later aluminum type) gong and a 6" Gamewell Excelsior gong. Should I, what type, and where to lube?

Thanks again sir.

[Ed Vining]

If the bell works fine I wouldn't do anything in the way of lube.  If It is sluggishh, it may be that the spring is gummed up.  I'm not sure how the 6" bell is constructed, but I can take off the gong, remove three screws, and get to the guts.  If the spring is gummed, just give it a good dose of WD 40, and let it drip.

It is possible that the mechanism is worn, but i never saw one that was.

You might like to see some of my collection at

www.alerting.net/museum/prologue.htm.

These folks maintain our community warning system.  They would love to have pictures of town sirens, bells and whistles.

Ed

[lostnyc]

I took my Horni register apart totally as the spring was broken, I didn't have any problems putting the unit back together and had taken many photos as a reference before I started.
The one problem I DID have was the spring- specifically getting it back inside the case!
It had broken at the weakest point- where the cutout in it anchors the spring to the hook inside it's case. I cut the rest of that off cleanly and drilled and made a new hole/slot in the spring like the original. The fun was getting that hugely lONG  very thick, very stiff wide spring back inside. I tried two different ways- coiling it first then trying to insert, and hooking it inside and spiriling it into the case while turning the case.
The latter worked but it took maybe an hour of very tedious work. As I got about 3/4 of the spring in the tension and force to get more in was getting more difficult, and at least a couple of times the whole affair threatened to "explode" out when I had most of the spring in and it started to get unstable without a cover to hold it in. Eventually I managed to get the spring in, closed up and it works beautifully.

Unless the spring is broken and has to be repaired or replaced- do not open the spring case or you'll certainly be sorry!

[jbc]

Lost,

Trust me I would never EVER attempt to go that far! I have been lucky enough to find a very kind gentleman who has much knowledge and connections with those who are experts on this equipment. Unfortunately he is about 3 hours away. So if anything major happens I will have to make the trip up to Shanandoah Pa.

Patience is not a strong point of mine.

My register is now functioning properly. Here was the problem: My pull-box gets screwed up sometimes. I think the weight is slipping on the timing device. The kind folks here have tried to explain how to fix it. I am too afraid to try. It seems everytime there is a power failure here my box won't work properly for awhile after. It slips, skips, goes fast, misses hits, etc. That makes the register sometimes just punch a big long "slash" in the tape. The tape shreds and gets caught-up and bunched between the punch and the roller...thing. I cleaned out the excess and it is fine.

I have to pull the box repeatedly to get it to go back to a regular cadence.

I may just end up getting another box.

[lostnyc]

It's not for the faint of heart, the ironic thing is when those springs were made they must have had a machine or jigs or something that simply assembled them  dozens a minute maybe, but without that it's laborious and challenging.

I guess I fail to see why your box or register would not work right after a power outage in your area, unless you have an odd setup... All I know is they run on low voltage DC, so even if you had a transformer plugged in the wall how would this going off affect your box snyc? Are we talking here about a typical Gamewell cast iron or  herculite windup box with electric coils inside or something else?

[jbc]

Yeah it's just a typical set-up. Probably a coincidence-thing. Strange.....but the more I pull the box the better it works. I am far from an expert. I collected the stuff from my youth as a "buff" who lived next-door to a fire station. I found an opurtunity to buy it along with some other memorabilia.

I am not a tinkerer of mechanical things. If it aint REALLY broke I won't mess with it.

[lostnyc]

I see,

Well my view on this is, these are machines, all machines are subject to wear, so every time you use it you add to that wear. Alarm boxes for the most part were designed to sit idle on a pole, most likely never saw much use, I mean how often is there a fire in a particular city block or two around one particular box? Once a year?

If the box on a particular pole is there 75 years and it's used once a week that's 3900 cycles.
Along comes a collector type who sets the salvaged box up and "tests" it on a now DAILY basis, that's now 365 cycles in a year and in 11 years it gets as much wear and tear as the entire previous 75!

Once a week seems like  alot, if it's once  a month that's  only 900 cycles in 75 years and the collector can add as much wear as that in 3 years.
I'm sure there's plenty of boxes that don't even see that much use and plenty that see much more -those are replaced or repaired.
There was a chap here I believe who "tested" his every day and reported his box was doing something odd like skipping teeth on the gears or speeding up suddenly.
sounded like he wore down already worn teeth to the point where they didn't mesh well any more, at least that seems likely.
lube would help, but lube attracts dust, grit and dirt too.

[EEitel]

Anyone have information on paint mfg and paint color/codes for Gamewell boxes?

Thanks.

[EEitel]

BTT....

No one has any info?

[firebox_417]

The only thing that I ever heard of is SIGNAL RED.I don't know if Gamewell made it up or it is an actual color of paint.

[EEitel]

Here is the reply i got from Gamewell when I asked them about paint colors:

Eric

   I have spoken to the people that handle Master Box

   They have no info on paint , colors ,or codes

Frank Murray
Gamewell-FCI

 
Are you kidding me?
They don;t know what color they paint their own boxes??

[Boxcom]

I, too, called Gamewell to get the "proper" paint color when I painted my town's boxes.  We got no response.  It appears that Signal Red is the closest I've come to matching a Gamewell box.  I've used that color on Rutherford NJ's and Little Falls, NJ's boxes, and they look terrific.  Nice, bright and visible for blocks!  Its certainally nice coming down the Long Hill Rd hill and seeing the boxes 5 blocks away at the bottom of the hill!  As for the white striping and handle, I used a high gloss white and that too looks great close up and from a distance of a few blocks!  The type of paint I used was an exterior oil-based paint.  After a full year in the sun in Little Falls, the red and white on the boxes and poles remain as bright as the day I painted it.

Bob K