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Bought this toaster at an antique store for 3 dollars. I hope to use it in my dorm room. When I bought it there was 60 years of burned toast and what my dad described as poptart inside it and there was this black sticky goo everywhere but I took the thing down to the individual pannels of metal and cleaned everything. I even took out the wires that keep the toast from touching the coils and washed each one individually. I did have some problems but luckely I was able to fix them. The first problem I had was that the temerature knob is on a screw and has the stop on the knob so when I pulled it off I set the temperatures out of wack (Actually did the same thing with the thermostat in my dorm room last year I was trying to see if you could program it and ended up getting it set to celsius and then after I tried to set it back I reset the temperature limits. The maintinece man said the limits were so far out of wack it did not know what was what.) and it would burn the toast big time. Finally got that fixed and then I noticed that while it was running there was a little bit of arcing on the screw that gives power to the center set of coils so I tightened the nut and that solved the problem and now I have a toaster that is built like a tank and looks new. I also was excited to see that the date it was made was stamped on the inside. January 18, 1950. The coolest thing about the toaster I think is that instead of having to push down on the lever you just set the bread inside the toaster and it trips a little lever which causes the bread to automaticly lower and then when the bread is done it automaticaly goes back up and it only takes 1 minute to toast the bread on the middle setting. I also learned that my grandparents had the exact same model toaster when my mom was growing up and my grandpa even remembered the model and knew exactly what I had before I even showed him and the best part is there were no extra parts left over after I put it back together  :laugh:

Here are some pictures of the toaster and the insides

(http://i515.photobucket.com/albums/t357/ScaleBowler/DSCF1348.jpg)
(http://i515.photobucket.com/albums/t357/ScaleBowler/DSCF1339.jpg)
(http://i515.photobucket.com/albums/t357/ScaleBowler/DSCF1340.jpg)
(http://i515.photobucket.com/albums/t357/ScaleBowler/DSCF1341.jpg)
(http://i515.photobucket.com/albums/t357/ScaleBowler/DSCF1347.jpg)

Great job on the restore!! We had one for years. I thought arcing and small fires were normal operation :-)
Seriously turn it upside down and blow the crumbs out every once and awhile and it will work for another 50 yrs.
Think frosted pop-tarts is what did ours in. Very cool that you spend the time on things way before your time.
Creighton  

Thanks! Lol! the arcing actually looked like a small fire between the scew and the wire. Thats how I noticed it. I really appreciate the old things. The things they make today are just junk. Kind of funny for me to say that too especially with the college kids having to have all the newest technology. I actually prefer a rotary dial phone instead of a cell phone and I do have one but hate using it. I am going to make sure that only bread and english muffins go into this one. I really don't want to have anything bad happen to it. Would like to know how it automaticaly lowers and raises. Even though I pulled it appart it still is a mystery and the coolest feature I have seen on a toaster.

Don't know how it worked either. Has to be some sort of heat trigger. With you on the cell phones have one but don't know the number and don't care. The sound quality on rotary's is outstanding.
Want to rig a system so the house, shop, and outbuildings are all linked by old phones but no joy on sorting that out as of yet.
Creighton

Very cool. They sure don't build em' like they used to!  :biggrin:

The old pay phone in my phone booth sounds better than any other phone I own. (wireless or land based)

That is always good! We've all been there and we've all said - "Oh well, it is working"  :laugh:  :laugh:

My parents owned one of those when I was growing up. I seem to recall some sort of sensor wire lever on the side that told the unit that there is a something to be toasted.

Yep there is a thin zig zag wire that goes accross one of the slots that when the bread goes in it pushes the lever down and trips a switch. Then the magic happens and it somehow lowers. It comes back up from the spring action in the wire arms on the sides but I am not sure how it goes down. It looks like there is nothing that allows it do do that. One of these days I will have to run it without the outsides on it to see how it works.

they just dont make cool stuff like that anymore

Ha!... That is the SAME model we're using now... it was my grandparents... love it... (yeah I collected them for a while too) had them lined up on top of the cabinets... the T9 is the best deco model.... sold them on ebay years back the T9 brought  the most money I got $90 for it... This model is the only one we have left... still works awesome...

I love it. Hope it lasts another 60 years. I think it will be a great toaster for my dorm. Just like the pepsi machine easy to use and built like a tank. lol!

Heck that toaster might end up to be like a parrot and out live you (us)

It proboly will. I have a feeling that this thing will still be working after they figure out a way to do away with power cords.  :laugh:

Found the patent online for the toaster and started reading it to see how it works. Turns out that when the toaster is turned on from the bread it causes the heating elements to turn on and start heating the inside. This ends up heating up I think it was the wires on the side of the carrage and causes them to lengthen slightly or something like that and it makes the bread lower and the opposite happens when the toaster is done and the toast comes up.

Gump they were geniuses back then