KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

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A classic key restored

Posted: 15 Oct 2018 12:43 PM PDT
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/kb6nu...m_medium=email


About a month ago, I blogged about finding the carcass of a Les Logan
Speed-X bug in my fathers garage. It was in pretty rough shape (see below),
but I really hate to throw these things away, so, I posted this story to
the CWOps mailing list, and asked if anyone thought it would be worth
trying to restore.



Jim, N4TMM, replied that he had just acquired and restored a similar key,
and told me the story of how he did it. He added:

Here is another thought. If you dont want to go through rebuilding, I am
happy to buy it from you, because the screws are what I need, primarily. I
will pay you whatever is fair, somewhere between $50 and $100, for instance.

As much as I love ham radio, Im really not very good at restoring things. I
have a bunch of old electronics on shelves here waiting for me to get
around to them. I could have added the Speed-X to the list, but it would
have been so far down that I rather doubt that I would have gotten to in in
my lifetime. So, I offered to sell it to Jim for $50, plus shipping. He
sent me $65, and I sent him the key.

About a week ago, I got the following email from Jim:

I completed the Les Logan today, after letting the red engine paint cure
for 7 days.Â* I am attaching two photos.Â* I wanted you to be the first to
see them.Â* What I did was to mill the top of the pendulum frame with a
diamond burr to a Fibonacci 8:5 bridge curve, then take the trunnion frame
and base down to the metal with Strypeze and sandpaper, then 2 coats of
primer followed by 2 coats of Rustoleum engine red enamel.Â* The pendulum,
posts, screws, springs I hand polished with Flitz the nickel plating was
fortunately in great shape so took the polishing well.Â* New finger/thumb
bulls eye pieces, and new feet, from Donnie at 2B Radio Parts.Â* Donnie gave
me a great deal of advice and parts for this key, including a new base when
I broke off a thread tap in one of the nameplate holes.Â* The hairpin spring
and weights came from the other Les Logan, in which I had replaced them
with a 1.9oz weight from Donnie and Vibroplex spring.Â* This particular key
had a bent pendulum blade, which is tough to replace, and which reduces
somewhat the frequency at which the pendulum oscillates.Â* But its perfect
with the weights you see on it for 20wpm or so CW.Â* As I had heard would be
the case, and like my other Les Logan, it runs really smooth, very
forgiving and a pleasure to operate. Â*Â*I wanted you to be the first to see
photographs of it.Â* Thanks again for letting me take it off your hands.

Heres what the key looks like now:



What I say is thanks, Jim, for doing such a great job restoring this key to
its former glory.

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