Door chimes
 

Does anyone out there collect vintage nutone door chimes?

No.

Heh. But I do have a 1938 Rittenhouse 4 chime Westminster. It has a beautiful bookmatched wood cover. I took it out of my last house, which was built in 1928, so I don't feel too bad about taking it away from the house. Besides, the new owners painted over all the beautiful stained wood trim and doors in the whole house, so they're not missing it.

It works, but it needs a little attention. Mostly, all the plungers need new ends, what are they, anyway? Plastic nubs? Sadly it was missing its longest bell when I found it. At some point in the future I want to make 4 new bells for it, shorter ones, so they'll fit in the doorbell alcove in my current house.

My current house has a 1950s NuTone ding-dong bell. I'm not particularly partial to it. My biggest gripe is that the ding-dong - which ideally is played in time - is timed by when you let go of the button. I was thinking it wouldn't be too difficult to use an Arduino or whatever to take over. With the button working a 24vac relay, that could signal the Arduino, which could run the doorbell via another 5v relay, with proper timing.

You know if you cut the bells it will change the sound. If you do make new bells and want to sell the old ones, let me know.

My parents house (built in the late 60's) had a NuTone doorbell which had 4 strike bars in it. It sounded quite nice.

Yeah, that's kinda why I said I intend to make new ones lol.

I think I'm going to hang on to my bells, I figure at some point I can get a brass pipe and make the one I'm missing. If I tune it to the right frequency, it should sound nearly identical, I figure.