| And below some pictures of the key approaching completion,
as you can see directly below the contact block has not yet been fitted, as
the position of the contact point along the length of the spring is critical
to the performance and to the "feel" of the key, a tension spring must first
be fitted onto the tension adjuster, as in this key the tension adjuster is
close to the pivot point the spring must be "hard" by that I mean it must be
quite difficult to stretch the reason being that the key is quite heavily
levered, in other words the knob will move much further downwards when the
key is operated than the spring will stretch upwards the same goes for
the contact distance although slightly less, all this balance of spring
tension against leverage and contact closure distance defines the quality of
action in a Morse key, getting back to the "tuning", the contact block is
slid along the contact spring whilst the key is operated, the block being
held tight against the base, you can see from the pictures the contact on
the left is way out on the end of the spring, this gives a very bouncy
soft feel to the action where as on the right the contact is close into the
nose of the key, this gives a hard mechanical feel to the action, and
somewhere in between is that magic "feel" once felt never forgotten, hard to
describe, a mixture of a hard contact but with the faintest of bounce the
key almost "rings" and gives an effortless feeling when sending code,
tension of the spring and the amount of gap also play their parts so take
you time with this part adjusting and readjusting but do remember to hold
the contact block firmly down when testing or use a small clamp, as it will
affect the performance, when you are entirely happy mark the spot along the
contact spring then drill two fixing holes into the contact block and fix it
so that the contacts close at the optimum point, sounds a real waffle but
this is the art of making an excellent key. |
