Friday, Oct. 21, 2016 — Finally taking time of upload a video (my apologies for the poor videography!), and write a few lines about about couple of my keys.
VIBROPLEX LIGHTNING BUG. I don’t have the serial number handy, but this is a pre 1940 Lightning Bug that arrived without a weight or terminal screws. I found the missing parts in my stock, then added the missing thumb piece. I have been pleased with how the key has performed, its very smooth. One thing that struck me after using it on the air a few times was something I overlooked — the top triangular plate is upside down!
The plating on the top parts is all pretty good (nickel rather than chrome), but I couldn’t understand why the threads on the top pivot adjustment were so exposed. The reason was simple — the threaded “collar” on the top pivot plate was facing down rather than up! I’m not sure why this is the case, but in a way, it makes sense; why not use the pressure used to keep the keying lever in the pivots as a force to keep the “collars” in place too? I have had the top collar pop out of a top plate before; note that Vibroplex mounted the bottom plate with the collar facing “up.” On the keys where I had the collar pop loose, it would have made sense to mount that plate upside down.
1935 McELROY MAC-KEY. I decided to shoot a little video of this Mac Key to show the differences in its construction compared with later keys. I won’t summarize the video, you’ll have to suffer through it like I did (hi!).
[youtube=https://youtu.be/dCsA_VcptWk width=”450″]
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