My new 1938 McElroy Mac Key DeLuxe arrived in today's mail. This is the third or fourth key I've purchased from the same seller, and he again did a fantastic job packaging it. This is the second McElroy key he's sold me. I don't know where he's getting these keys — unless he's a collector. Each week he always has several interesting keys listed, including some primo collectible ones.
The key is exactly as he described, but there were a couple of things I missed from the photo.
There's a large chrome fixture that looks like flat bar that runs parallel to the keying lever, and it is the mount for the dit and dah contacts. The bar is attached to the base on two mounting lugs. You can see the forward one; it is just to the left of the dash contact screw at the front of the key. The rear mounting bolt is missing entirely!
The mounting bolt should be located just to the rear of the t-bar, between it and the dit contact screw. I looked in the shipping box to see if something vibrated loose, but after closely reviewing the photo, I see that what I saw was truly what I got — a key missing the nut and bolt from the mount.
That nut and bolt also had some bakelite washers and a spacer on the shaft of the bolt in order to insulate the “hot” side of the keying line from ground (the base of the key in this case). I'll have to go to the hardware story tomorrow for the appropriate nut and bolt. I'll replace the insulating washers with nylon or fiber, depending on what they have. I don't know what I'll do to insulate the bolt shaft itself. In other bugs I've used a piece of soda straw because it wasn't visible. Since this is visible, I may have to come up with something else — perhaps painting the soda straw black?
Perhaps I'll get to give the key a try on the air this weekend. I used my 1936 Mac Key to check in on the KSN this evening. I need to make a couple of weights for the key. I have brass rod big enough to slice up into weights, I just need to do it. As it is now, I'm moving weights from one key to another.
There's a seller with a pile of key parts for auction, and there looks to be a couple of McElroy bug weights in the pile. I would love to have them for my keys, but I figure the pile will sell for good price — for much the same reason that I'm interested in it — parts is parts.
73 es cul … de KY4Z … sk