keys

This is my First (And probably last) attempt at multiple key production, I did intend to make Four in one go but limitations on my brass supply and not wanting to bite off more than I could chew I've reduced it to three, Cutting the brass is a winner as with everything set up for cutting it's as easy to cut 3 as it is to cut one, just takes a bit longer, although I did meet the first snag, trying to get Three handles from the One bit of brass I had meant a slight reduction in height at the knob end of one of them, here they are rough cut below (Day One)

I am making the bearing holder sides slightly different than usual, owing to the size of the brass I have available, I'm cutting the parts separately and then clamping them into a vice before drilling rather than in one piece.

Here below I'm trimming the sides to shape after drilling

And now assembly, again I'm doing it a different way than the "G3YUH One hole at a time method" I have assembled the pieces together and lightly tacked them in place with solder, then I have drilled pilot holes and then drilled and tapped, and everything aligns perfectly, it really is important to get everything aligned well if the key is to have an exceptional action.

And now another easy way to get a that nice sloping Swedish look to the bearing plate, by simply using the curved part of a belt sander, you have to be careful not to take to much off but it is an easy way of getting the desired shape

I have made a mistake in doing to much at once to one set of bearing holders, the idea was to make them all at the same time, but that is not easy, there were a few tiny errors and in correcting them I went further than I should have, also I experimented with different ways of doing things and that is bad news for multiple key production as I got distracted from the idea of the project. (End of day Two)

Finally managed to get into the workshop today after a break from making Morse keys, and finished making the three trunions, I have found out that making more than one key at a time has its problems, in as much as if you make a mistake and don't notice, then you have a lot of back tracking to do :(( End of day 3)

I thought I might mention at this stage I haven't been fitting ID tags to my latest keys, for various reasons, one being I'm often asked not to fit any ID tags, as I suppose some owners prefer the original look of some of these copies, and from my own point of view my keys are fairly well documented on my web pages and I can't visualise anyone making copies of them so now I just punch my callsign and S no under the arm where is can't normally be seen as below.

I am progressing slowly with the project, escaping to the workshop now and again as time permits, cutting and making the various parts three at a time is a good idea and a real time saver, however assembling the various parts is still a "one at a time" job, below you can see that the body of key 152 has been assembled and fitted to its bearing block, and being compared to the original, now I shall go back and assemble the bodies of 153 and 154, all the parts being made whilst making 152, it SHOULD be fairly straightforward :() End of day 4.

Here the three key arms are mounted on their bearing blocks and roughly trimmed to shape, two of them have worked out perfectly the other one is a problem child, that's often the way with Homebrew key making, things go really well or plain badly nothing in between, but nothing serious, they are all now swinging freely on their ballrace bearings, even though they are only partly constructed they have a feel about them that says quality action, this is certainly a great design, end of day 5

Today was spent slotting the nose of the keys to take the contact springs, and making the knobs and fittings, End of day 6
(When I say day I mean about 3 to 4 hrs playtime now I'm retired :))

Yesterday I made the large tension adjustment knobs as I felt like doing a bit of turning, and today the three rake adjusters, which are a bit fiddly with the slot cutting and threading, and below that one of the keys positioned to show where all the parts will eventually go
End of day 7 and 8

Below you can see the top contact adjuster arms are now completed which concludes the major part of the keys construction, and all the parts are placed on the bases where they will eventually go, next job is to make and fix the contact strips into the arms and then assemble everything onto the bases, end of day 9.

And now the keys need to be "tuned" this involves finding the correct point to place the contacts on the contact spring to obtain the required "feel" to the action, of course it is very subjective, I tend towards a firm but very lightweight bounce, similar to the Amplidan, (once used never forgotten :()
or as close as I can get to it, the idea is shown here in this small clip

And now the fitting the tension adjusters to the keys, I decided on a different system, similar to the original design, best shown on a separate page here this is a long complicated procedure with lots of trimming and filing to get it all to work smoothly and also finding the right tension spring that works best with the key, to hard a spring and it adds resistance to the action, (the original keys had very hard springs) to soft and the action has a "Dead" feel to it, All of this effort combined with the precision ballraces that are an addition to the design give these keys what I consider superb operating characteristics,
The rest of the keys construction is just adding the electrical contacts, terminals, and replacing the temporary bolts with finished adjusters etc which won't affect the keys performance which is now fixed in time.. end of day 12

The long road of making adjusters and terminals has begun, above Sn 153 is mechanically complete, and just requires finishing...
Below a comparison with the original inspiration, I won't say clone or replica, maybe "Very close copy" :()

Sn 153 Complete below Day 13 This key 153 has now been SOLD...

Below key 152 is now complete, slight difference on this one as I haven't plated the terminals, just the tension knob bearing bolts and gap adjuster.
I am now finishing the keys one by one, as the multi key project has more or less run to a conclusion, this key has a few minor differences, the size of the gap adjuster is bigger but basically they are all very similar.. This key 152 Has been Sold

And below Key 154 is also finally complete, On this particular key I've used some reshaped ex military terminals which has given the key a more low slung chunky look, which I quite like. And I haven't slotted the base in this one. This key 154 below has now been Sold

And that more or less completes the great G3YUH mass key construction project, ok it was only three keys, but it certainly taught me a thing or two, certainly cutting out parts for more than one key at a time is a great idea and I shall probably make a few spare parts as I go along with other key projects, my problem was I had to see a result to keep the enthusiasm going, (interest waned a bit after day 14 and I went off to complete a couple of key conversions) I should have cut all the parts in one go and left any sort of assembly until the very last, I couldn't seem to get around the final assembly where little tiny adjustments were needed to individual keys, but that shows that these really are still individual keys each one is slightly different, just a few fractions of a millimetre variation alters the final looks.
I don't think I shall be attempting this again even though it was great fun it was a bit of a marathon project for me. total project time 18 days.