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insulators can be beautiful He can't be shocked-he's loaded with insulators By Elmer Pasta t Bruce Evans thinks insulators can be beautiful. The Granada Hills resident is a lineman for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. He collects the small cylindrical objects found where telephone or electric power lines join their poles. And he has over 400 such insulators. “I’ve been collecting the interesting things for about three years now, beginning when I started putting up power poles for the D. W. P. I found they were dumping old ones in city dumps when they were replaced.” Evans has “one of the first complete lines of California insulators in existence.” They come in many colors, shapes and sizes. Most of those in his collection are made of glass, the hobbyist reports, although some porcelain came into use during the late 19th century. Other kinds of insulators have been used in unusual situations. For example, Evans said Indians in Arizona used to steal glass-made insulators for some reason, so asbestos ones were used there instead. San Francisco trolley lines at one time used wooden insulators. And rubber ones have been employed on power poles along railroad tracks in isolated areas where they cannot be repaired or replaced frequently. Evans enjoys displaying his vast collection of insulators at hobby shows and various swap meets, where collectors with more than one of a kind sell or trade those they don’t need. “Another source for obtaining insulators to add to my collection are bottle collectors. They sometimes dig them up in the course of looking for rare bottles in dumps all over the country.” Bottle collectors have their own clubs, but insulators collectors do not as yet. However, they do have a regularly published magazine, called Crown Jewels of the Wire, through which they exchange insulator information and trade to build up their individual collections. “I’m always looking for different types of insulators I do not already have in my collection,” Evans said enthusiastically. “Perhaps some of your readers have some to sell or trade!” Collecting insulators may be an unusual hobby to some people, but to a power lineman like Bruce Evans, “insulators can be beautiful!” ***