Admiralty Pattern 7681 Morse Key - Refurbishment

My "posh" morse key is made up from parts of an Admiralty Pattern 7681 morse key, that I had when I was in the Royal Navy....Recently, I have hankered after getting another one, and refurbishing it, so that I had an "original" to show people what it looked like before my friend made the superb wooden mounting.  A few days ago, I spotted a rather shabby looking example on Ebay... so I put in a bid, and won!... when it arrived, it did not disappoint me.... it was in a horrible state.... so I began to clean it up a bit, and then took all the bits off it, and gave them a polish up with my wire brush on the electric drill... Now I have it back together again, I have given it some testing and it works just like it should do... you can see this on the video at the end of this page.... Pics are in no particular order, and the whole job took me about 6 hours work... but not all at once... I am very pleased with the finished article, and it now has pride of place with my other keys on my desk.... I use CWCOM ( a free internet chat program, that allows the use of any kind of morse key to communicate with other like minded persons in CW or morse code...Great fun)... to make use of my keys, and can connect them all together or just use one at a time... If you are interested in Morse and would like to chat.... look out for callsign GEMS on CWCOM... 73.... VA. AR dit dit..


Please Note.... To see a larger version of each pic... just double click on them !.... 

 

How the key was advertised on Ebay...

The pic above really does do it justice !.. it was horrible, when I got it out of the box...

First of all I gave it a spray over with WD40.... and left it to soak in for about an hour... Not only did it free off most of the nuts and bolts.... but it helped to clean up the bakelite base and knob.... I did not make a big effort on the bakelite, as I wanted it to show some "age" despite my refurb efforts making it look like new.!..

So I took the rocker out first, and noticed that the holes for the pivot screws were well worn.. I decided to give them a drill out using the next size drill, just to make them "round" again... As the pivots on this key are "pointed" screw threads, they need to be able to hold the rocker steady, but at the same time, by making sure the pointed screws are not screwed in too tight, to give enough "play" in the pivot so that the rocker will move freely in the up and down rocking motion.  Too slack, and the key is likely to stay "on" .... too tight, and the key will need a lot of spring pressure to bring the key "off".... the ideal is to use as little spring pressure as possible, whilst maintaining the steady stable rocker arm...

After doing the drill work.... I decided to remove the knob and all the other screw fitments, and rubbed the rocker arm on some very fine wet and dry paper.... this has brought up the brass base to a nice "antique" look "glow"... Next the big rusty screws that are the pivot points... made of steel, these had a good coat of rust on them, so I put them into the electric drill and with the wet and dry, made the points shine.... also cleaned up the heads and threads....

The Rocker arm after cleaning, and drilling the pivot holes.  

The springy bit underneath the rocker arm is the electrical connector from the rocker to one of the contacts on the base.... Remember, when these keys were made ( about 1940 ) transmitters used very high voltages at the key, hence the "skirt" on the knob, as a spark deflector..

Whilst all the bits were removed, I started to give the base a good clean up with just using a clean cloth, and a prod to get into the corners... no polish was used, as I did not want it to look "brand new" when I had finished...

The Bakelite Base.... with all the dirt and stuff removed !

Once the base was cleaned up, I noted that there is no serial number on it.... however, that does not mean it is unused.. it certainly had been well used, judging by the wear on the pivot points... just as I was about to continue with the other metalwork, I noticed the letter WG painted on the serial number corner.... (unfortunately, the WD40 removed the paint !... but the mark can still be seen)...  These letters refer to the company that made the key... Ward and Goldstone... Which is quite interesting, because I recently purchased and antique morse key, and that was made by the same company in 1905... see further down the blog for this key...

Showing the mark of W.G. in the serial number box for Ward & Goldstone manufacturer

Once all the base had been cleaned, it remained for me to spend some time cleaning all the individual bits and bobs, that make up the key... to do this, I bought a £1 rotary wire brush head, put it in the electric drill, and each piece, held in a vice, ws given a quick brush up... Amazingly, they all cleaned up to look like GOLD !... that took about an hour and a half... then, all that was left was to remember where they all fitted back on the base,... and .... Just look at the difference !....

Here is a short video of me testing the key after it had been connected to CWCOM.... Put on your speakers, and click on the little square , bottom right hand corner for a full screen version !....  .