Found these when re-wiring an old house






Heres a sample cutting of the cable, which is actually in quite good condition



A quick search on the net reveals that British insulated Cables existed for 20 years (1925 - 1945) before becoming BICC, which ties in nicely with the house as it was built in the 1930`s .

The original wiring was all there until i ripped it all out (2002), and the switches were all original solid brass and looked lovely. So i put them all safely under the stairs in a box and when i went to get them the bloody joiners threw them in the skip

- sanUK

Quite a find! It's amazing what sort of old labels, papers, etc. turn up when you start crawling through attics or tearing into walls.

I don't recall ever seeing any labeling with this brand name on before, but of course the rubber-insulated 7/.029 cable is a familiar sight.

Very nice!

NOTE



@#%*?! skilled carpenters threw them in the dumpster

Source: The American·British British·American Dictionary For English Speaking People

Actually....a Dumpster is a particular brand of those types of rubbish bins.

This is according to the Associated Press' writer's style book (or 'bible').

and here is the American Heritage (R) Dictionary's definition:
Yeah Yeah! I know -- WIZEGUY!!

Was NONAZO just a brand or was it an acronym for something?

[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 08-08-2003).]

Darn! I've just spent the best part of the last hour browsing through that site!

Interesting, but....

I guess I'd better go do some work.

I suppose I ought to go and do some work.





[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 08-08-2003).]

Hilarious!


I went to look up "joiners" and "skip" because I wasn't quite certain of the meaning of the last sentence. I sort of gathered that's what it meant based on the context, but wanted to be sure.

As to DUMPSTER being a trade name, I was not aware. Seems it was registered as a trademark in 1963 That whole area of trademark law can be tricky. For example (at least in the US), "Band-Aid" and "Xerox."

I just read that NexTel is trademarking "Push To Talk." Apparently, in the specific area of wireless telephone service, no other company will be permitted to use that term.

I can't believe they were allowed to do that. From what I remember, "PTT" was always an accepted, general term.

Finally, as to the original topic at hand, are those tinned conductors as opposed to Alumin[i]um?

That "Please see that this label is unbroken" at the bottom of the first photo reminds me of the label found on a mattress.

[This message has been edited by ThinkGood (edited 08-09-2003).]

Most likely the conductors are tin-plated copper. Bare copper reacts with (sulfur? in) rubber compounds with a corrosive effect. Thermoplastic/vinyl does not have this problem so it has no need for plating.




[This message has been edited by Bjarney (edited 08-09-2003).]

This is a little off topic, but the term “NON-AZO” these days refers to chemical fabric- and food-dye molecules that do not contain a double-bonded nitrogen pair. It may have had something to do with the fabric covering over the rubber insulation—just a shot in the dark.

I read about the Push-To-Talk trademark a little while ago in a telecoms mailing list I subscribe to. It seems ridiculous: The PTT term has been used in radio/telecoms work for decades. The height of audacity though I think goes to the Zilog Corp. when they tried to trademark the letter "Z" some years ago.

Yes, those conductors are tinned copper. These were retained after the introduction of PVC insulation. Plain copper became the norm with the changeover to metric-sized cables around 1970.



[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 08-10-2003).]

Whoa! What does this mean for thos of us who use these dead-front rubber cord caps:



The bare wire does touch the housing when it's all assembled. I've got a bunch of these wired up at home...now you've got me wondering whether I'm rotting my lamp cord or what!

Good question. It may be that the rubber has to be vulcanized to copper; er, "cooked". Don't know if the same reaction occurs with bronze or brass.

It's during the production process. Unvulcanised rubber is a gooey sticky mess, so it needs to be vulcanised by adding sulfur and heating it up. And during this process the sulfur would ruin bare copper conductors. After the rubber is vulcanised the sulfur doesn't do any more harm.

sanUK,
And in this time, this company (and others) exported this type of wire to New Zealand.
I have seen these very same tags and labels up in roof voids where we have been re-wiring houses of this era.
Not sure of the geography of the UK, but I have seen a few labels with Manchester, Surrey and Sheffield on them.
There was one that had the Manchester Cable Company on it, does anyone know of this company?.