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TG:
Nice find....I had a few of these around somewhere that were removed during a renovation job. They are "wirenuts", and were used as such a long time ago, before plastic. I never noticed that they are from Holland. Wonder what they cost???

John

I have an old electric menorah from which I removed an ill-fitting white ceramic wirenut to replace it with a better fitting but garish yellow plastic one.

Some people also call them "marrettes".

The one I removed, however, is unglazed. There is also no metal spring inside the porcelaine shell and no maker's mark -- just a UL logo on the top.

I saw, years ago, some tiny ceramic wire nuts in a lighting store here in New York. Didn't know they still made them in that material.

While talking about old splice caps here, I just removed an old one from a 40's house. It was a brass? crimp on the wires. UL listed for 10-18 AWG wires. There were 4 dents (one on each side) so I guess it was sort of crumpled on the wires with a special tool. Over this was a black rubber cover shaped like a wirenut.There were 4 bumps (to fit in the dents?) inside. At the end was a B in a triangle (Buchanan, I think) and the number 2005. As an extra security for the insulator, there was a red ring slid over the cap. I think it was original. I has to cut the crimp off though, so I was left with some 4" leads from the box. Very labor intensive.
Thinkgood, is there a spring inside? I guess even if there was, it has rusted out from being buried for years.

Those crimp splices are not necessarily old. You can buy them all over the place. Home depot even sells them (though they don't sell the necessary crimping tool)

See:
Ideal/Buchanan crimp connectors

-Jon

[This message has been edited by winnie (edited 10-17-2003).]

I use Ideal crimps all the time on grounds. I just thought it was neat the way things were done before wire nuts were commom.

ps I use a klein 1005 crimper

Should this be in the 'Nostalgia' area?
Can anyone date the usage of these?

Bill

Porcelain wire nuts are still used and readily available. They are for areas of high heat(stoves,ovens,...). No spring, just threaded cone.

Another case of one brand's name becoming the accepted name of a generic product. Maybe its just a Canadian thing?
http://tnbelectricalworld.tnb.com/contractor/docs/marrette.pdf

Not just Canadian (maybe for marrettes "though"). Other countries often use tradenames for the generic name of a product.

As stamcon wrote, there was no spring inside. Just a lot of soil!

What I found fascinating is that it was able to clean up into such nice condition--even though it's just a wire connector

As to the crimp connectors, I recall reading in one of Rex Cauldwell's books that the proper way to crimp is with a device that will apply equal pressure from all sides.

I have noticed that the orange store carries caps to cover the crimps on current-carrying conductors.

Winnie:

Are those crimp-on barrels also properly used for splicing together the bare ground wire in NM cable?

The DIY book I bought at the orange store shows that use. However they just show the brass "sleeve" crimped over a bundle of bare copper wires - no rubber sleeve or anything.

Sven

I use bare crimps on ground wires. It's not nescessary to insulate the crimp because the ground wire is typically bare anyway.

yep they were very popular over here in the UK..used in old house wiring.

well before my time though,must have thrown hundreds in the bin over the years.

http://elec-cat.tnb.com/tnbcat/tnbcat/te..._hier_id=TEL314 is T&B's version of the porcelain wire nut.

[img]http://elec-cat.tnb.com/wcat_images/publish/tels/tels_porcelain[/img]

I came across & still have (somewhere) some of those same Simplex - Holland wirenuts... I have a regular customer in Ocean Beach (San Diego) who owns a house built in 1927.. Those were used at pretty much most of the existing light fixture locations, along with the funky wax-coated cloth wire.