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Posted By: Admin Old Colt Armory Pics - 04/22/04 09:13 PM
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Some pictures of the project I'm on....Taken at the Colt armory complex (these shots are from the oldest of the buildings, the East Armory, built in the mid 1800's)

Notice the “Colt” logo on the breaker panel- They actually had an electrical division in this complex where they made disconnects, starters, fuses and breakers.


I’ll send more pics as I get them.

- Brian (aka swedejr)
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[This message has been edited by Webmaster (edited 04-22-2004).]
Posted By: Bjarney Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 04/22/04 09:37 PM
Looks like www.electrical-contractor.net/Nostalgia/Colt_Armory2.jpg in particular is a nice image what was used before conduit expansion fittings. [Ground continuity "by others." Note that convenient fuseblock taps would not be available in an expansion fitting.]




[This message has been edited by Bjarney (edited 04-22-2004).]
Posted By: mamills Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 04/23/04 12:19 AM
Brian: Gotta' love those old porcelain condulet fittings! I hope you save those guys, as well as that Multibreaker panel. It kinda looks like a Square D or Cutler Hammer with a Colt label on it. This is interesting. The only Colt electrical products I have seen until now are safety switches.

Mike (mamills)
Posted By: swedejr Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 04/23/04 12:45 AM
I'm saving everything I can...I love seeing the old stuff...
I'll post more pics when I come across other cool stuff.
Posted By: electure Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 04/23/04 01:57 AM
These are neat! Very interesting.
I agree with mamills. I think that the "Colt" panel has SquareD breakers in it.

I've never heard of Colt electrical equipment before, but I guess it's not that odd if you consider the General Electric M134 Minigun, M61 "Vulcan" or the WWII "Liberator" pistol, (made by Delco-Remy's [GM] Tailight Division).
...S

[This message has been edited by electure (edited 04-22-2004).]
Posted By: sparked Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 04/23/04 07:23 PM
How about this one... [Linked Image]

[Linked Image from coltparts.com]
Posted By: mamills Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 04/23/04 07:36 PM
Yep...I have a couple of these very switches in my collection, in excellent condition. I removed them from a couple of old "shotgun" style houses just before demolition.

Thanks for the pic, Sparked.

Mike (mamills)
Posted By: mamills Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 04/23/04 07:49 PM
I hope I'm not guilty of Threadjacking here (I apologize if I am), but since this thread deals in part with equipment carrying rather uncommon manufacturer names, has anyone ever heard of electrical equipment by the name of "Mongerson's Machine Works"? I saw a nicely preserved 60 amp 3 pole safety switch bearing this name, back stage in a local high school auditorium. I know very little about it, other than the fuses (ordinary cartridge, non-rejection-type) slide into place and are held there with screw clamps, and the actual switch jaws are not visible, being hidden beneath the entire assembly inside the can (not such a great idea, huh...).

Mike (mamills)
Posted By: swedejr Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 04/23/04 09:17 PM
Mike- do you have any pictures?
Posted By: mamills Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 04/23/04 10:49 PM
Brian: Not yet...I don't have a digital camera. I'm going to be in this auditorium in about three weeks to do a sound job, and I'll try to borrow a camera and take some pics. at that time. If I can figure out how to post them or send them in, I'll try to get a thread started here.

BTW; This switch is abandoned, more or less - juice to the line side, nothing on the load side. The maintenance supervisor is a friend of mine. I'm gonna try to get this little gem into my collection! [Linked Image]

Mike (mamills)

[This message has been edited by mamills (edited 04-23-2004).]
Posted By: Admin Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 04/24/04 06:20 PM
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Here are some more pics from Colt- the picture of the motor starter inner cover is very similar to Allen-Bradley

(from swedejr)
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Posted By: Lostazhell Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 04/25/04 07:04 PM
I never has a clue Colt made all this stuff! Does anyone know when Colt stopped marketing electrical wares? This is now the 4th company Ive seen make the Multi Breaker setups...
Square D, Cutler Hammer & Trumbull were the others... You guys ARE saving this stuff? It'd be a shame to see it tossed out [Linked Image]

-Randy

[This message has been edited by Lostazhell (edited 04-25-2004).]
Posted By: NORCAL Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 04/26/04 01:50 AM
COLT-NOARK fuse? Looks like a predecessor to FPE, Colt also built commercial dishmachines,there is one sitting in a local scrap yard that has a date with a plasma cutter.
Posted By: swedejr Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 04/26/04 11:56 PM
From what I gathered, Colt wanted to be self- sufficient, especially during the war years.
They certainly had the know-how and the machinery to do anything.
Posted By: MIDLF Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 07/03/04 07:19 PM
The 1937 Colt Electrical Products catalog does not list any breaker panelboards. They do list "auxiliary" freestanding circuit breakers. This catalog, especially the section on cast iron service and fuse boxes brought back some memories, some terrifying, of eliminating the remaining downtown Milwaukee, WI 250 & 600 volt DC systems in the early 70's.

I'm in the process of moving and was going to dump this catalog. If anyone wants it let me know, no charge, I'll pay the postage, as I hate to dump what someone may want. Ping @ midlf@execpc.com. This catalog was on its way out the door at WEPCo in the mid 70's and it was too interesting to let the trash man have it.

MIDLF
Posted By: swedejr Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 07/05/04 10:23 PM
MIDLF-
I'd love to see that catalog....If you really don't want it, e-mail me and I'll give you my address....

Thanks,
Brian
Posted By: Skyhawk Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 08/12/04 11:30 AM
Hello All,

Nice site.

I have been in the trade for a while (started wiring houses in 1962 as a helper-the old man was in the trade) and enjoyed looking at the old gear pictures that have been posted. I have quite a collection of my own and recognize almost all of the items, as I have either worked on them or wrecked them out for newer gear. I came in through the IBEW and have worked the commercial and industrial (high and low voltage) fields, traveled quite a bit, and have been with the DoD for almost two and a half decades now. I am a Certified Level II Infrared Thermographer and use a FLIR P-60 camera.

Of particular appeal to me is the old Colt gear, as I have an interest in their other products. I have several of the 30a. disconnect nameplates and several of the embossed serpentine “C” nameplates used on the magnetic line starters. The gear itself was in very bad condition and was not salvageable. I have searched for some time looking for other people that have similar examples with minimal success. I had even written Colt, some time ago, inquiring into the rarity of these items.


[This message has been edited by Skyhawk (edited 08-12-2004).]
Posted By: Admin Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 05/07/05 01:56 PM
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Gents:

Attached is a jpg of a NOARK tag from a mine I'm working on here in NM. It even has the old bucking horse logo that is on revolver handles. It has patent dates of 1919 and 1924 and comes from a mine that, based on documents, was up and running between 1916-1930.

I'm not an electrical type, so any information you could provide would be appreciated. You may use the pic as you see fit. Thanks for having this thread; I was bumfuzzled until I found your site.

Neal Ackerly, Ph.D
Silver City, NM
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Posted By: Admin Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 01/10/06 10:24 PM
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OK, guys, here’s your chance for some real fun with ancient history.

I’m a restoration architect in Noo Joisey trying to date a pair of fused disconnect switches (with steel cases and drop down doors). There are paper labels on the fuse cutout bases indicating they were part of the Nuark (or maybe Noark, but it looked like NUARK to me) Service System, manufactured by Johns-Manville with patent dates ending April 22, 1919.

Nobody I’ve been able to contact has ever heard of J-M as a manufacturer of this sort of stuff, although ABEBOOKS does have 1905 and 1911 JM catalogues that would appear to have included electrical devices like this. Based on the description of the 1924 JM “Service to industry” catalog and the 1929 copy of Sweets I have access to, they seem to have limited themselves to roofing and asbestos-based materials, and given up on electrical devices by the mid 20’s.

Is it possible the Noark/Nuark name was picked up by Colt from JM?

Anybody know anything about JM as a manufacturer of this sort of stuff, and how long the were in that business?

Thanks very much.

Ralph Walter
Posted By: electure Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 01/15/06 01:33 PM
Colt's diversification into machinery, printing presses,commercial diswashers, ticket punches, and electrical equip. came about as a matter of necessity.

Their firearms manufacturing was prone to extremme fluctuation due to wartime orders (in WWII they tripled their workforce). The diversification smoothed out the bumps for them, even producing pretty good dividends for the shareholders throughout the Depression.
By 1955 they had become a money loser because of lack of orders after Korea, and became a susidiary of one of the nation's first conglomerates, Penn-Texas.
The roller coaster continued, and they've had to survive a 4 yr strike (in the 80's), and filing for Chapter 11 (early 90's) since.
Posted By: Lostazhell Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 04/03/06 12:26 AM
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has anyone ever heard of electrical equipment by the name of "Mongerson's Machine Works"

Mike,
Mongerson machine works turns out as I've learned to have been a local company to where I live now (Bakersfield, CA). This made them obviously fairly popular around here... I have some pics of one someplace @ home I'll get posted up.. (The ones Ive seen are probably about 50-60 years old)
Posted By: mamills Re: Old Colt Armory Pics - 04/03/06 08:19 PM
Randy: Thanks for getting back to me. I would definitely be interested in seeing any pics you may have. This switch (still installed - alas, it's got current to the line side or else it might have "mysteriously disappeared" some time back) seems to be built to a very high quality, actually much better than some of the Square D or Siemens stuff I see nowadays.

Kinda curious that, with the multitude of Square D's, ITE's, General Electrics, Wadsworths, FPE's (their safety switches aren't so bad, just the CB's [Linked Image]) and so on, that this one lone Mongerson Switch is the only one I have ever run across.

The only thing I really didn't like about its design was that the switch jaws were hidden from view beneath the entire internal assembly. As with a number of other people, probably, when I operate a safety switch (especially when shutting it off) I like to look inside afterward to verify that the action actually took place. I've had a few "lie" to me in the past [Linked Image].

Mike (mamills)
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