Knob and tube

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keith gigabyte

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New Kensington, Pa
General question dor knob and tube fuse box. I am accumulating old electrical products to showcase in my shop/store front as kind of a history of electrical products. Does anyone know the original color of the covers? I'm thinking black?
 
keith gigabyte said:
General question dor knob and tube fuse box. I am accumulating old electrical products to showcase in my shop/store front as kind of a history of electrical products. Does anyone know the original color of the covers? I'm thinking black?
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Some of the very earliest fuse boxes/knife sw discos were contained in an (often custom built) asbestos laden wooden cabinet w/ wood door.

After that the boxes/covers tended to be black steel.

blkmagik21 said:
They had covers? Lol


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Click to expand...

Believe it or not, a bunch of those old wood fuse cabinets went coverless by design....

Crazy what used to be allowed in many areas eons ago.
 
Wired in 1914, OC protection box in grandma's house had no cover, asbestos cloth lined 14.5" by 18" OPEN recess in the outside wall on the basement stairs.

Now, the individual fuse blocks (both of them) had white ceramic covers over the linen cored lead/tin fuse wire (looks like solder)

I have one of the fuse blocks yet in my stash of old stuff, pic and other info in an old thread (link below) with info about the fuse element I did not know till Jreaf posted a pic of the fuse wire also. When a pre-teen kid, I 'upgraded' grandma's fuse box with knife switches having E26 base fuses.

Picture of old fuse block and contributions of others adding to knowledge base. There are a couple of other neat old photos others posted also, esp the Woolworth card with fuse wire on it!
http://forums.mikeholt.com/showthread.php?t=174517 http://forums.mikeholt.com/showthread.php?t=174517&highlight=fuse+ceramic

Only part of grandma's house was K&T, all the lights had linen covered wire pulled thru the old gas piping. Always did wonder how grandpa pulled that tar/cloth covered wire around the short 90 deg gas pipe elbows! Was told once that they disassembled the gas pipe, pulled the wire by sections, and screwed it back together!

Grandma lived next door, my bedroom was there - had to 'upgrade' her house for my 'experiments'. IIRC, the original wiring had one outlet in the living room for the radio, another in the dining room where grandma had her ironing board. Every other outlet in the house used adapters with Edison bases screwed into light fixtures.
We wuz poor - some of the wiring added was old extension cords found in the alley and taped up with friction tape. We all survived, never any electrical failures.
 
The oldest one I have in my collection has an inspection sticker from 1920 and the box is black.

30 amp 120 volt (not 120/240) with four fuses for one circuit. Both the neutral and hot are fused. One pair of 30 amp fuses inside the box, and a pair of 25 amp fuses that screw in to the bottom of the box from the outside. Craziest thing I have ever seen. It was in service and working when we took it out about 15 years ago. The electrical inspector had the POCO pull the meter when he saw it. HO had a 200 amp breaker panel fed from the old box, which was fed with 10AWG from the meter.
 
junkhound said:
Wired in 1914, OC protection box in grandma's house had no cover, asbestos cloth lined 14.5" by 18" OPEN recess in the outside wall on the basement stairs.

Now, the individual fuse blocks (both of them) had white ceramic covers over the linen cored lead/tin fuse wire (looks like solder)

I have one of the fuse blocks yet in my stash of old stuff, pic and other info in an old thread (link below) with info about the fuse element I did not know till Jreaf posted a pic of the fuse wire also. When a pre-teen kid, I 'upgraded' grandma's fuse box with knife switches having E26 base fuses.

Picture of old fuse block and contributions of others adding to knowledge base. There are a couple of other neat old photos others posted also, esp the Woolworth card with fuse wire on it!
http://forums.mikeholt.com/showthread.php?t=174517 http://forums.mikeholt.com/showthread.php?t=174517&highlight=fuse+ceramic

Only part of grandma's house was K&T, all the lights had linen covered wire pulled thru the old gas piping. Always did wonder how grandpa pulled that tar/cloth covered wire around the short 90 deg gas pipe elbows! Was told once that they disassembled the gas pipe, pulled the wire by sections, and screwed it back together!

Grandma lived next door, my bedroom was there - had to 'upgrade' her house for my 'experiments'. IIRC, the original wiring had one outlet in the living room for the radio, another in the dining room where grandma had her ironing board. Every other outlet in the house used adapters with Edison bases screwed into light fixtures.
We wuz poor - some of the wiring added was old extension cords found in the alley and taped up with friction tape. We all survived, never any electrical failures.
Click to expand...

Well if you think about it, the schemes in those days weren't all bad.

If half lapped, Friction tape practically has to be sliced off, by itself, it will hold something together until the end of time. And especially if the joints were twisted together enough/soldered, they posed no real danger of a loose connection.:D

Short circuits were less of a concern due to fuses- if they happened, the fuses blew open right away eliminating the danger- no possibility of a breaker jamming/taking its time.

The real danger would have been from overfusing those ext cords, not much of a huge threat from that even b/c even the old rw could handle at least little more than rated (another + was that the rw was young at the time). The K&T was relatively safe from that b/c of the spacing/heat dissipation.:)
 
I've seen everything you have all mentioned. Have you ever seen the "fuse" box with various sizes of lead wire for fuses? Gauge of wire indicates fuse amperage. Also who has run into carter 3 ways...such a pain if you do
 
Fused neutral (center bar)

Partial disassembly



Reworked
Not proud of the lv cable routing (should have used multi conductor) but I had 1 day to finish it.
LV switches only temp mounted until carpenter does his thing.

 
Are those RR7 relays I see sticking out of the boxes?

What did they replace?


Interesting photos, thanks.
 
junkhound said:
Are those RR7 relays I see sticking out of the boxes?

What did they replace?


Interesting photos, thanks.
Click to expand...

They are RR7's

If you look at the old panel there are relays adjacent to each fuse/circuit position. I'm curious as the panel is 1908-1910, does a LV relay lighting setup like this date that far back?

This is a lighting panel for main section of an old church. There was 2 smaller panels just like this and a nice zinsco panel that also were updated at the same time.
 
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