As you know, Porcelain Insulator News appears in CJ every other month. Due to the recent surge in interest shown for multipart porcelain insulators, I will devote every other "PIN" article to multiparts. Perhaps the interest in multiparts has been out there all the time, but just hiding in the closet. Since my book, Multipart Porcelain Insulators was published last year illustrating 345 multipart styles, we now have 45 new styles to add to the chart! A book supplement will be ready in 1990, so if you have any new styles, please let me know.

Bill Rohde brought a couple of nice multiparts to the San Luis Obispo Regional in May for me to look at. The first one is M-2221 with an unusual incuse marking underneath the top skirt. The marking is clearly shown in the photograph below. The insulator does not have any other markings, but appears as though it may have been made by Thomas. By the way, that show was great. I came home with several multiparts including a beautiful Fred Locke M-2795 (with a glass bottom skirt) with the original sulfur cement.

The other multipart that Bill brought was one that I have wanted to see for many years. It has been assigned a new M-number, M-2254, (shown in the two photographs below) and has the incuse marking, "LIMA, NY". Lima markings are very rare and are known only on M-2420, M-2640, U-376, U-519, U-648 and U-705. The M-2254 was evidently used in the Fresno area as Bill has found two of the marked ones plus a few that are unmarked.

M-2254
7 -  3.5 x 6.5

After seeing M-3900 pictured in "PIN" in the July, 1988 issue of CJ, Ken Stefan sent the next two photographs showing these insulators still in use along a street of a large city in Illinois. (The name of the city is obviously withheld as Ken and a couple of others have an eye on these, as they wait the day these beauties are retired.) That must be quite a sight to see these huge insulators very prominently displayed, six to a pole. This insulator has been nicknamed the "tick".

The M-3900 appears to be very scarce and none are known to be marked. On the next page is a copy of an illustration used in an article about fog-type insulators which appeared in the December 20, 1930 issue of the Electrical World. This is the only reference I have found on the "cement-hood fog-type" insulator. Note that the illustration shows a three-piece insulator cemented inside the hood. This is different than the M-3900 which has a two-piece insulator inside the hood.

M-3900
12 - 10.5 - 7.5 - 3.5 x 8

Below is the illustration of the "cement-hood fog-type" insulator from Electrical World dated December 20, 1930. The reference in the article merely states that, "For the lower-voltage lines certain insulators, commonly referred to as "cement-hood" types (shown in Fig. 5), are in most cases satisfactory."

Chris Hedges sent the next three photographs of a very unusual insulator. These are still in service on a structure which appears to be an old bridge. Naturally, Chris has not revealed the location, much less the state, that these are located. A photograph of this same insulator appeared in the Electrical World dated December 3, 1927 and is shown after Chris's photographs. These are two-piece, fog-type insulators made by the Lapp Insulator Co., but a captured specimen has not been reported.