Yes, as odd as that sounds, the newest auto parts store in town, Advance Auto, has become my favorite stop for ham radio parts — second only to our local family owned hardware store.
The beauty of Advance is they're open until 9 p.m. — that's about the time you realize you can't find that last hank of rosin-core solder you kept with your Weller soldering iron, and you absolutely, positively HAVE to get that PL-259 soldered this evening.
Tonight I was on the way home with my daughter, who I had transported to her music lessons, when I realized that Advance probably had what I needed for my newest key, my 1938 McElroy Mac-Key DeLuxe.
While adjusting the key, it was evident the keying lever return spring was much too weak to bring the lever back against its stop in a snappy fashion. The weak spring was creating extra half dits because on characters that ended with long strings of dits, the keying lever would bounce off the damper and sometimes contact the dit contact.
Vibroplex Keys use a spring to push the keying lever back against its stop — a time-tested method that works well. However the Mac Key uses a spring to pull the lever to the stop instead of pushing it. This method means the return spring stays stretched out all the time, and that probably explains why the factory spring had no more life left in it.
Advance Auto isn't like our local Radio Shack, but they could use the same slogan: “You have questions, we have puzzled looks.”
I go in and this 20-something male clerk looks up from his text messaging briefly to greet me, “Hey Dude, whassup?” (Note to self: Tell my kids when they're working to never address paying customers as “Dude”). “Can I help you with sumpthin?”
I explain that I'm looking for springs.
“What year car is it for?”
Well, it's not for a car its for a Morse code key.
“What? You need a key? Dude, I thought you wanted a spring. We don't have a key machine thing.”
No, no, I do need a spring.
“What year, make and model, Dude?”
It's not for a car —
“We don't got it.”
You don't have any springs?
“Yeah, but they're for cars. Carburetor springs, stuff like that.”
Mind if I just look around?
“No, Dude, if you need any help just yell.”
That didn't work out so well the first time I asked, but OK.
In their big display of generic HELP parts (things like door clips, door handles, trim screws and doo-hickeys), they had a generic assortment of throttle return springs, ranging in size from “Big Honkin'” to “Itty Bitty.” Believe it or not, I found one that was the same size as the worn-out one on the Mac Key — only it was about six inches longer than I needed. A pair of diagonal cutters took care of that, and it took about 3 minutes to fine tune the spring and get the key adjusted.
Ahh! Now it plays much better! It's got some snap to it, now. I used the key tonight to check into the section CW net and pick up five monthly traffic reports. The Mac Key looks clunky as heck, but this one runs quite smoothly.
1938B MAC KEY REPORT. Speaking of the Mac Key, I did some comparisons with the other 1938B Mac Key I have in my collection. The new key lacks the “dot stabilizer” that my other 1938B key has. The dot stablizer was designed to keep tension on the 
dot contact spring in order to eliminate or reduce partial dits. At right, you can see the dot stabilizer that was original to my new key. The stabilizer was a separate piece that attached next to the dot contact spring to pre-tension it.
I suspect its a bigger problem with high-speed ops. My new Mac Key has the space on the pendulum for the stabilizer, but no stabilizer is present. It doesn't really affect the operation of the key — one way or the other — at the speeds I run. I'm just tickled to simply have one of these Macs on my desk in good working order.
For SKN, I'll definitely be running the new Mac Key. I've been looking around to see what other keys I might drag to the operating desk. I don't know why, but one of my favorite Vibroplexes is the Lightning Bug. The DeLuxe key — chromed to the max — is just a very pretty key. I have a very sweet-operating 1928 Lightning Bug I'll probably use too. This key worked for a living, and has operator-carved paddles that were wrapped with several layers of what look like ancient band-aids. The bandages have been worn over time into a molded finger grip that's surprisingly comfortable — once you get over the ICK factor of petrified bandages used for dash lever padding.
If I can find it (I think I boxed it up and it wound up getting sent to the attic), I would like to use my Chinese straight key. After I changed out the spring on that key, it became reasonably comfortable. It's an excellent straight key too, though with all the Chinese product scares, I wonder what poison chemicals the key is laced with.
That's it for this evening. 73!