Porcelain Guy Strain Insulators

Guy strains or compression strains were typically used to insulate a telephone or power pole guy wire from ground. This was done to protect from inductance causing a charge on the wire as well as to prevent galvanic affects from corroding the guy wires and anchor. These were also used to dead-end a circuit for relatively low voltage. There is a huge variety of porcelain guy strains available from very tiny styles to large units.

This numbering system for porcelain strains was established by Raven Kotlarsky and Steve Coffman. Note that glass guy strains are already covered by the CD numbering systems in the range of CD 1111 to CD 1156. The porcelain numbering system uses GS as the prefix and covers worldwide styles in a combined system. The system is broken down by basic type of strain and is sorted from shortest/narrowest to tallest/widest within each type. the GS system is divided into the following ranges by type:

GS-1000-1999 Johnny Balls
GS-2000-2999 Through Hole Compression
GS-3000-3999 Finned Through Hole
GS-4000-4999 X Style
GS-5000-5999 Egg Style Strains
GS-6000-6999 Through Hole Saddle
GS-7000-7999 Miscellaneous

Special thanks to Raven Kotlarsky for initially publishing this system and gathering the initial photographs, measurements and supporting data to document these cool insulator styles.

The gallery view will show the side view of the various styles. If you click the gallery picture a detail page it will link to a detail page showing larger pictures with more views as well as multiple varieties of the same style if they have been reported. If you have a style, maker or signifnant color variation that is now shown in the gallery or detail pages, we would appreciate your assistance in providing pictures, measurements, and marking information so we can grow the data available.