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Show f TELSPKOMH j ftPDS I, New Process Extends The ' Life Of Telephone Cords Telephone cords that go ; from phone to wall, are now ! more durable than the tradi- tional kind. Engineers have : developed a way to put a hard plastic on top of a soft one. The cords were devel-j devel-j oped by Bell Laboratories : ; and Western Electric. I Previously, the cord was subject to dirt being ground : ii into it, nicks and crushing. It ; ' was relatively easy to stain , j with lipstick or a ball-point ! ? pen, for instance and discolored dis-colored with prolonged exposure ex-posure to tobacco smoke and fumes from cooking oil. : The trick was to come up 1 with a formula that would provide the desired character-,J character-,J istics, yet would not affect 1 the transparency of the ma- terial. This transparency is i the key to another saving !the phone companies don't have to stock different colors to match color telephones. On top of the vinyl is a I thin shell of tough polyester. This coating resists crushing ' and is impervious to many stains and odors. Western Electric expects to detach I cords from phones returned to its service centers for refurbishing, re-furbishing, wash off most of 1 the cosmetic blemishes and return many of the cords to M service. Western would just as soon you didn't challenge any -' phone equipment with closet : doors, tricycles or skate- ; boards, but it knows the new - cord will win out over ordi nary wear. In a Bell System : i test of cords that had seen 10 15 months of service, 85 J percent of the topcoated cords were re f u rbishable, compared to only 20 percent of the uncoated units. |