MTFCA Forum

What was the composition of the original New Day timer brushes? The ones available now use a brass brush.

All the old ones I have found were brass. But I think it was a special formula of brass and not just plain brass.

Bronze. I use carbon, a piece cut down from a generator brush.

First attempt. It worked OK, but I cut later ones to fit better.

I had an original New Day timer, brand new in its box, and the brush was a copper color. It seems to be lasting fairly well.

The “new, correctly made” new day timers have a brass colored brush that seems to last fairly well too, but not quite as well as the 80+ year old originals.

Before the “good new” New Day timers were available, I experimented a couple years ago with a carbon brush and a “copper” brush made out of a nos Ford starter brush. When used with a good original timer shell, The copper brush lasted at least twice as long as the carbon brush.

The brass colored brush that comes with the currently available New Day timers seems to last about twice as long as the copper starter motor brush.

If looking for a brush, I would contact the manufacturer of the New Day timer and order a couple from him.

Some of the vendors were also selling an earlier version of these brushes that had poor longevity and there may be quite a bit of old stock floating around out there so it might be the luck of the draw of what you get unless you got one direct from the current manufacturer.

A bronze starter brush might be a good choice to make one for the New Day. I believe they are of an alloy that contains graphite. I think New Day used something similar originally.

My auto elec son makes replacements using starter motor copper brushes, not necessarily T items. He leaves the wire tail on them and solders this to the brush body to make a failproof contact rather than relying on the sliding sides of the brush and the spring.

Allan from down under.

I had an electric motor shop make me a length of copper, with a 1% carbon content a few years ago. They configured the shape for me to fit an original New Day brush holder. After that, I had a machinist cut each brush to the original length. I think I wound up with a dozen of them. Only last week did I have the back of each brush bored to accept the spring, and the hole drilled in the side for the keeper. I haven't had a chance to try one of them yet, but it looks promising.