junction boxes

[Appin]

The message from "Bob Eager" contains these words:

That is indeed a Clix plug -- and it shows the wording "CLIX PATENTS" in one of the photos.

I would re-iterate that though in theory it was possible to undo the cover while the plug was still live, in practice that was not all that likely to happen provided the plug was in good condition, hadn't been taken to bits dozens of times and had been wired in the obvious and correct way.

The way the cord grip was designed, the flex itself added to the friction provided by the clicks, so that a properly tightened Clix plug in good condition required significant effort to unscrew.

Remember, too, that we're talking about something from an era in which the average plug didn't have the cord grip fastened over the outer sheathing at all (due to the incopetence of the individual fitting it and the poor quality of the soft fibre of which the cord grip was made) and it was common to find the wires being pulled loose.

[Andy Wade]

That's the beast. Its other endearing feature was the ease with which stray strands of flex could short across the pins. There was a lampholder-style cord grip but no barrier between the pins. If used on appliances that were plugged and unplugged a lot if often happened that a strand or two would break loose and move into the shorting position. When you plugged in to a live socket a nice little blast of vaporised copper would emerge from the flex hole and zap you on the hand... Hence my initial comment. It was, perhaps, the original plug and pray device. Even in the 1950s they were considered dangerous.

[Mike Clarke]

... and, in some cases, didn't even have any type of cord grip at all if I remember correctly.

Another "delight" of the era was the removable front covers of some light switches. Flush ones in our house were just held on by a small screwed ring in the centre which could easily come loose. Some of the surface ones even had covers that spun round to unscrew in a similar way to the Clix plug tops (but without the clicky bits). There was no attempt to shroud terminals inside switches and sockets in those days so there was lots of live brass exposed.

[Tony Bryer]

Metal covers (unearthed of course) in many cases too!

[Bob Eager]

Scruits (sp?) were the things that made me cringe. Don't the septics still use them?

[Alang]

Scruits were still used in low power telemetry applications when I retired in the late 1990s. They are handy where you want a removable connection and space is limited. Only time I ever saw them used on anything else was street lights

[dmc]

According to wikipedia (so it *must* be true :-)) "Wire nuts are widely used in America, but have not been permitted on 240v mains installations since the 1950s in Britain"

Darren

[Alang]

I found them on a street lighting system in the stockyard/quayside area I looked after in the 60s. Some of the lanterns had them. Others had terminal blocks. Suppose they could have been there since the 50s. Only other place I've found them was in my Weller soldering iron and the ones I used in temperature probes.

[Owain]

I had an electrical book, early 1980s (15th Edition) which said that scruits could be handy if properly used - usually for looping-in lives at battenholders etc.

I recovered lots of ceramic original Scruits(tm) from a 1920s installation and very useful they are too.

Owain

[Old Git]

Whilst serving my apprenticeship in the early 60s, scruits were still widely used. I then moved over to electronics so rarely met them after that.

I have seen them commonly used on some recent US DIY programmes.

Scruits, when I was using them, were affectionately known as "dogcocks" Mike