atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Butt set tutorial

we call them "snips"

real phone men wear them in a pouch everywhere , (never know when you might need them )

one thing to try on the buttset is to wiggle the cord at the clips and where it goes into the case to see if that effects the static

(I'm assuming you replaced the battery )

Real telephone splicers call them "shears."

Splicers were never real telephone men. :rofl: Just Kidding. We were alaways giving the splicers crap. And yes I always called them "snips" but they go in the left back pocket. I have a pair in my back pocket almost always, better than a pocket knife. Wife gets pissed when a pair goes in the wash. I must have 15 pairs floating around.

Mike

I was a splicer for my first 8 years with Bell and never heard them called anything but snips. We would even use our headsets one side to grd to see if a line was in use before cutting the pair. It was easier to go opps that way.

Shears? Must be a Northeaster thing. Always snips. You could find the rookies by who called them scissors.

"Scissors are for cutting out paper dollies"

Snips it is. Ordered as scissor, electrician, with stripping notch.

Shears? Cable sheath shears or "tabbing" shears were for hooking up grounds after splitting the sheath to allow the grounding sheath shoe to be inserted.

Hip pocket? Not a splicer sitting on a butt box. ISP guys, CO guys, they stuck it behind the belt at the first loop (right or left) while REAL telephone men carry them in a pouch that is made for the snips and cable knife. Now, as real telephone men get older, we carry a small maglite in it's pouch just behind the snip and knife pouch. That way we can see what we are cutting.

Butt sets were used even on open wire to test lines. The old KS brown box was the last thing you wanted to drag up a pole with you.
The only thing you couldn't test with the butt set was common sense.......

Goat? Cause it could butt you?

My 2 cents.

It must be a NorthEast or even just a Big Apple thing to call Electrician's Scissors "shears". Always called shears - and nothing but. Wiss was the favorite brand, followed by Clauss. Klein's shears were third rate in the beginning and then got better. Snips were Tinsnips.

Ken - a similar quote to yours:

As my late partner Moe Harris (who at one time had been the fastest splicer in the Bell System) used to say:

"Seamstresses use scissors. Splicers use shears"

Splicers (besides just putting two wires together) also handled all the carrier equipment. I can't speak for the whole country but in NYC they did and that was GTE policy also. I was surprised that when Verizon installed FIOS at my home it was handled by Installation (albeit a special group) rather then splicing.

Sam

Ken, you don't have to be old to carry a flashlight :p I do a lot of sound work and always carry a leatherman and mini maglite...never know when something is going to break!

Sam....off topic....around here SWBT cable splicers did just that...nothing more. No Carriers, cable repair, nothing but splice cable.

United, later Sprint, now Embarq splicers were also cable repairmen.

With at&t Fiber construction is done by a division of the normal cable construction. Special Services do T-1s, carrier, concentrators, etc.,etc........

Embarq I&R in small exchanges do it all BUT construction and cable splicing/repair.

Yep, must be a NYC thing....I've worked from Maine to Florida, Washington to California, in between, worked for utilities, contractors, the Feds, and even the IBEW....snips is snips.....
Wiss :thumb: Claus :thumb: Klein splicer's knifes and snips are second rate but you don't have much of a choice most places.

BUT (still off topic) Dmarc some times, SNI always, and NID rarely....depending on who you talk to. It is still usually a Keptel unit on the outside of a building.

As they say, the difference between the English and the Americans is the language....same for telco terms.

Back on topic the Walker throw away butt set is one of the cheapest and easiest...plus has an RJ11 plug for testing modular....Harris next....then Premier (I wish North Supply was still open).

"I wish North Supply was still open" Amen to that, brother. If they didn't have it, you could get along without it, in general installation and service tools and parts. Obviously, they didn't carry every brand of key system and pbx, but what they did carry was "Da' gud stuff!" John C.