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I'm pretty sure the sealing disc is there too, possibly just not the black we're used to seeing - could be discoloured from heat over a number of years ?
 
I also think the cap is there, it being the flat type with 2 holes.
 
possibly just not the black we're used to seeing - could be discoloured from heat over a number of years

Paxolin discs for imperial cable were never black, they ranged from tan to dark brown. Here I think it looks mostly grey due to the compound smeared all over it, with a couple of brown bits showing through.

Anybody remember the compound being green?
 
Showing my (relatively) young age. I only know black plastic seals, and grey compound. All metric sizes.

I do recall earth tail pots.

One job as a young ‘un was to strip around a metre and a half of around 4 dozen micc cables for the tradesman to fit the glands after me.
Day after day I went home looking like Casper the f**ked off ghost.
 
Why was it done like that in old buildings?
As others have said, it is a fantastic cable in many ways, but cost and skill level needed to use it makes it pretty rare now.

The first point (and where it remained in use until last couple of decades) is it is practically fireproof in both survivor in a fire and not being able to start one, so you would see it for fire alarms and emergency systems. Now we have a range of FP cables that are cheaper & easier to work with and "good enough" so that MICC has largely been dropped from this area.

That reliability aspect was a major advantage 60+ years ago when rubber wire might be lucky to last 25 years, much less if a difficult environment in terms of temperature or oil/fuel contamination. Now we take it for granted that good PVC wire (without abuse) will generally last 3-5 decades, but for large high-value places like factories, hospitals, ships, or major office blocks, at one point it was also economically worth doing (in the days when folk took more than a 3-5 year future in to account). Realistically, if you don't get water in to the mineral filling MICC will last for centuries without degrading.

These days it really is a bit of a speciality cable, you see it for big projects with very onerous fire requirements, or in some industrial cases where cables have to go through very high temperature regions, etc.

Finally it looks cool! Especially when bare and polished, you really get that quality steam punk look to an installation :) Or more practically if you need to put external lights, etc, on a historic building it looks the part (even if it really is a 1920's look on a 1700s building, to many it does not appear too out of place).
 
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@dokkan1080 can you isolate this cable to confirm this one way or another? If so, once proven dead, poke the grey bit gently with a clean plastic tool. You'll either hit the disc or the tool will start to sink into the compound. Don't push it in more than a few mm.
 
I still remember installing a lot of Pyro with great fondness,used to be my favourite type of work.
During my apprenticeship with the local Health Authority it was widely used. I never installed anything other than orange sheathed and always with brass slotted roundhead screws, used to get all those slots vertical too. ?
 
Nice scary word
Scary is walking along these corridors, which are identically shaped to the wards above…. And there are trolleys in storage down there, and old equipment….. spooky is a word that comes to mind…

and as the hospital is on a bit of a hill, one level of catacombs is the same level as wards in use…. Take a wrong turn and you walk into gynaecology!
 
Red, orange, white and bare.

I think the last time I was near the stuff was pulling in a 250m length through the catacombs under ninewells hospital in Dundee.

I have some black stuff in the store, somewhere.

This is about 5 yards away now, in the garage, with a bit of Anaconda Sealtite, the best flexible conduit I've ever used.
Just wish there was a call for the jobs to use it.

What type of cable is this? IMG_2062 - EletriciansForums.net
 
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