Recently I acquired K8RA Iambic key #0352 from an estate, that was advertised as such:
Originally the keys came with trapezoid-ish paddles, which the operator found unsuitable:
The rosewood “dog ear” pieces he made are finished nicely and I like the grain, but they were left on during shipment, which unfortunately consisted of a small cardboard box and a single layer of the tiny bubble-wrap. Even after some cyanoacrylate repair work the paddles still felt flimsy and non-tactile.
So I went to the drawing board:
I started by thinking I was going to print a new dog ear. But then I read multiple reviews of the K8RA key online that said the key was fantastic but the paddles were slight and bug-like. Even the dog ears are an improvement as it extends the paddle all the way down to the base, which offers good leverage with a more natural, at-rest hand position. The spacing was definitely too close for me, so the final result has a raised and filleted “boss” area.
I had it printed in solid ABS and will leave it unfinished because the texture is fairly hi-resolution, like a fingerprint.
Works like a charm. If I had these printed in brass it would look nice, but the keyer is a pair of electronic levers, so we won’t go there. On my bench above shown beside the previous paddles.
If you made it this far and still have no idea what the brass device is for… it has two spring loaded levers… one for dot and one for dash…
This type of key is called iambic because when you squeeze the levers, the transmission is “di-dah di-dah di-dah di-dah…” Some people send with the right-hand thumb on the left paddle and the right index on the right paddle. (Apparently most do the reverse, but we want the reverse mechanical advantage to give T time to rest on big thumb). To send an iamb, a “di-dah”, you would have to squeeze by actuating the index and then squeezing with the thumb. To send the reverse troche, a “dah-dit”, the sender activated the thumb on the left dash paddle and squeezed the right dot paddle with the index. Hold down the right paddle for a bit and you get dit-dit-dit-dit-dit, the number 5. Hold the left for dah-dah-dah-dah-dah a zero.
Marvin is 85mm high and took around 2 and half hours to print using PLA+ filament.
