This is my Cootie Mk2 to be really honest my knowledge of
Sideswipery is minimal, I've only used a very small number of Sideswipers or
Cooties and most of them I've made myself, also I must admit I'm not
great at sending with a Cootie either, now I'm talking "Cooties" not
Paddles, my idea of a Paddle is a key that is designed to work with some
sort of electronic code generator with three terminals, where as a Cootie
sends code by "Swiping" the handle back and forth pausing at each side to
produce either a dot or a dash as required, there is some confusion as
Paddles can be wired up and used as Cooties, but a true Cootie can not be
anything other than a Cootie as it only has two connections, no doubt
someone will tell me otherwise :()
Now most of the vintage Cooties were quite simple and just had a flat steel
spring that was bent back and forth to send the code and when released would
centre with no contact at all, auto centre is common to all Cooties and
Paddles, you release the handle and no contact is made on any terminal,
there are basically three ways of doing this, With a flat spring, With
spring loaded flaps, Or with magnets, each have advantages and
disadvantages, a flat steel spring is the simplest and many homebrew cooties
are made with old hacksaw blades and drawing pin contacts but they can be
very stiff and difficult to adjust, also they need a very heavy weight to
hold them in position, And then there is the spring flap method where two
spring loaded flaps are lifted alternatively when the paddle is pushed left
or right and when released both flaps hold the handle in a central no
contact position, It does work quite well and as the flaps are normally
adjusted individually they provide a wide range of adjustment to the key but
the action feels a bit odd, experienced Swiper enthusiasts sometimes say the
flap key seems to be working against you instead of with you, hard to
explain but it seems difficult to get a nice "flow" going with a flap
design., And there are magnets, magnetic Cooties are few and far
between mainly as they are difficult to make as getting the magnets in the
correct position to tension the action means a lot of adjustments, but the
real advantage of a magnetic Cootie is if it is carefully designed code can
be sent with a minimal pressure on the arm, most cooties require a heavy
base as the act of pushing the arm of the key sideways or "Swiping" can
physically move the whole key, but a good magnetic action can be set so
light that a really heavy base is not required and code can be sent in a
very relaxed way by using the very lightest of fingertip pressure, and this
key below is designed to do exactly that :() |
As you can see it is magnetic, basically there are two disk
magnets one fixed to the base and one on the arm and they are held edge on
to each other this provides the tension and centering, sliding the arm
magnet up or down the arm increases or decreases the tension but even when
set really close the tension is minimal, the key was originally designed so
that sliding the magnet up and down provided the tension and swinging it
left and right would centre it but in practice this proved difficult to do,
So I fitted another disk magnet on a cam, the tension can be set and then
the cam magnet can be rotated to centre the arm, a bit like bandspread on
the old receivers, and this of course means I only need one gap adjuster, a
terminal is fitted where the second gap adjuster would normally be. To get the very weak magnetic force to reliably centre
the arm the key needs an almost frictionless pivot bearing I tried a sleeve
bearing but just couldn't get a reliable centre, so the pivot on this key
has two high quality ball races fitted, the action has a featherlike touch
and needs a bit of getting used to, but it is what handmade key making is all
about for me, pushing the envelope to find what works and what doesn't, it's great fun,
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