Anatomy of a Switch (part 1)

When we first took possession of Chez Melendy, and before I started demolishing the interior as planned, I went around the house and tried to spot details that gave the old house the charm that we fell in love with.  I knew that by gutting the house, we risked ripping the soul right out of the thing we fell in love with, so I was careful in saving the tiniest of elements that might preserve its antique qualities.  Maybe too careful.

Just off the kitchen the house has a small "addition" that we now use as the mud room.  The previous owners used it more or less as a broom closet because it only had half a floor--actually a ramp that connected the kitchen to the barn.  I suspect that this little room was used as a woodshed when the kitchen had a wood cookstove, and before that, it was likely the outhouse when the house lacked indoor plumbing.

An early project in the evolution of Chez Melendy was to put a floor in that room and make it into a mudroom.  But let me tell you about the little light switch that controlled the light bulbs that dangled from the ceiling of the that little room and the barn.

The switch worked about 80% of the time and even then required some coaxing.  But I had never seen light switch quite like it. It has a cute little face made of bakelite plastic and has particularly charming click when you switch it.  It's more like a click-tick than click if you can imagine.

Three years ago when I repaired the switch for the first time, I was amazed at its design.  Behind the bakelite plastic face was a porcelain insulator, specially molded to contain the switch contacts and the toggle.  The toggle itself is complicated assembly of brass rods, a spring, and a brass roller.  When the switch is moved, the rods and the spring work on lever that shoots the roller through a channel molded in the porcelain.  Depending on which side of this little channel the brass roller rests determines whether the switch is on or off.  Ah! The early days of residential electrical engineering.

I couldn't throw this thing away.  I was determined to make it work efficiently once again.  The parts were all there, though a little worn by time and use.

It took about an hour, but I completely disassembled the switch and cleaned all the parts.  I noticed that the porcelain channel had developed a burr that was preventing the roller from passing through it consistently, and I was able to smooth it by scraping it with a screwdriver.

Putting the switch back together was a brain teaser.  I knew where everything went, but getting the brass rods positioned just right to compress the spring so that the roller could be slipped in the channel took a few tries, with the little brass roller shooting across the kitchen floor more than once.

But get it together I did, and when reinstalled, the switch served us well for three years in all its antique charming click-tick glory.

NEXT: the switch is retired....