Sunday, May 15, 2011 — I traveled to Louisa, Ky., for the local club’s hamfest on Saturday and had a great time. In addition to my official duties, I looked around the tables for various and sundry CW gear. I found couple of Heathkit HD-10 electronic keyers for sale for a $30, but that was about it. I really don’t care for the HD-10, hence I’ve never acquired one. I do own the HD-1410 keyer, which was my first iambic keyer that I used on my SB-102 station and others. I still have that key here in the shack.
The key I’ve been playing with lately is a Les Logan Speed-X Model 500 key. It’s like the one in the photo, except the key is painted in black wrinkle paint rather than chrome base and pivot.
Tn addition to the one I’m using, I have two other Les Logan T-bar Model 500 bugs — both have a chrome pivot T-bar frame and painted black base.
The Speed-X 500 bug I’m using plays exceptionally well. I think the Les Logan Speed-X bugs are second only to Vibroplex in design and beauty. I really need to take it apart and repaint it; the paint has some chips knocked off the T-bar and also on the sides of the base. The interesting thing about the Les Logan bugs (at least when the three on my desk were made) is the bases were painted with a straight black non-textured paint. The sides and top of the base and the entire T-bar were then painted again with a wrinkle-finish paint. On these keys, if there’s a chip, its not down to the base metal, but to the black basecoat.
On the latest Model 500, two of he adjustment screws in the pivot frame are stuck. The pivot frame on these keys is the coolest feature, but also the most fragile feature — its made of some cheap pot metal, and I have seen plenty of these keys with the “ears” on the pivot frame broken off. It didn’t affect how they played, but just looked ugly as sin.
But these screws are a delicate matter. In *most* cases, if you careful grab the offending adjustment screw with a pair of vice grips (with the grip padded) you can break the screw free.
Most of the time. The other option is for the screw to break off — NOT a fun option. I’ve been lucky so far, but there’s some sort of chemical reaction between the adjustment screws and the pivot frame, resulting in corrosion that locks the adjustments in place. The penetrating oil of choice I use is PB Blaster; I don’t have any in the house, and haven’t been outside to find it in the barn; but I will find it!
I’m going to soak the screws in the PB Blaster before I put the “grip” on them. That should work ok. The second Model 500 is mounted on a base with a straight key, a homebrew “double” key, if you will. I’ve barely touched that key since it arrived many weeks ago.
One important acquisition to the collection is a parts key; this key was missing the pendulum, but all the other hardwar was intact. It’s handy to help refurbish another bug like the ones I’m missing with.
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