[youtube=https://youtu.be/5zUs3SuVzn0 width=”450″]
Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016 — While my wife’s on vacation, I’m taking a temporary vacation from the honey-do list and playing a little catch-up on my key collecting to-do list.
Well, I was also doing a little clean-up here in the library and remembered the disassembled World War II-era 1944 Lightning Bug I bought for parts in an effort to repair a J-36 
bug that took a nosedive off the table and bent the top plate. After I straightened the top plate, I didn’t need the parts, so I decided to to see what was needed to complete this parts key. As I’ve mentioned months ago, it didn’t take much, just some hardware and an upper pivot.
As it turns out, the key was something more than I realized at first. All of the parts were coated in a brownish gunk that turned out to be nicotine. The top parts, the base, everything was coated in nicotine. It took some work to get the parts cleaned as the nicotine was tough, but it was worth it. The key isn’t mint, but the fact that it started as a box of seemingly random parts (and sold as such) and is now a complete, working key is satisfying. I’ll keep the key on the desk for a while and put it on the air.
I’ve been using the homebrew Brown Bros / Signal Electric paddle/straight key combo for the last few days, and I finally thing I was getting my iambic fist back in shape. One of the problems I found was that my miskeying was due in part to the keyer speed being too slow or too fast.
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