foggycoder
Super Member
No, don't laugh, please. I'm being serious.
I'd previously been using a £5 Chinese 3D-printed iambic paddle (you can't beat that price but the central pillar contact distorted under moderate pressure causing unwanted dits and dahs), and then an AME Porta-Paddle (£80 - expensive, once you've paid the customs duty and the £8 Post Office "handling" charge). But I was making too many mistakes with these iambic paddles so my "Morse Code Guru" suggested I try a single paddle. They all looked expensive just to try, so I decided to build this one myself.
I used a 300mm hacksaw blade cut down to 80mm (the longer the blade, the lighter the return pressure). I Gorilla-glued the ends of a "tongue depressor" to the blade to make a "paddle". There's no need to drill a hole in the blade for the base bolt as these hacksaw blades have a hole in each end anyway. The paint needs to be sanded down at the base and where it contacts the bolts, to ensure good electrical contact. The larger angle brackets are 40mm x 40mm, and the smaller ones are 30mm x 30mm. The bolts are 3.7mm diameter (whatever those are, to fit through the holes in the angle brackets - no drilling!). The cable is a 3.5mm stereo extension cable with one of the jacks cut off. The trickiest bit was clearing the insulation off the wires so that I could solder them (dits go through the tip of the jack; dahs through the middle ring; and ground goes from the base of the blade to the base of the jack). I used a dob of hot glue for strain relief. The base is 7.5mm MDF cut to 220mm x 10mm (the extra space acts as a "wrist rest" to stabilise it). I've now wrapped a couple of elastic bands round it to stop it moving around on my desk.
The contacts do need to be cleaned once a fortnight with a few strokes fine sandpaper and then a few strokes of printer paper - the metal is untreated steel so light corrosion can cause degradation of the contact surfaces if you don't do this. But I believe that's no different from many other keys. I keep the gaps as wide as the thickness of a sheet of printer paper.
Surprisingly it has turned out to be a very good paddle. In fact, it is my everyday paddle. My error rate has gone down significantly and I enjoy using it - single paddles seem to suit me.
I'd previously been using a £5 Chinese 3D-printed iambic paddle (you can't beat that price but the central pillar contact distorted under moderate pressure causing unwanted dits and dahs), and then an AME Porta-Paddle (£80 - expensive, once you've paid the customs duty and the £8 Post Office "handling" charge). But I was making too many mistakes with these iambic paddles so my "Morse Code Guru" suggested I try a single paddle. They all looked expensive just to try, so I decided to build this one myself.
I used a 300mm hacksaw blade cut down to 80mm (the longer the blade, the lighter the return pressure). I Gorilla-glued the ends of a "tongue depressor" to the blade to make a "paddle". There's no need to drill a hole in the blade for the base bolt as these hacksaw blades have a hole in each end anyway. The paint needs to be sanded down at the base and where it contacts the bolts, to ensure good electrical contact. The larger angle brackets are 40mm x 40mm, and the smaller ones are 30mm x 30mm. The bolts are 3.7mm diameter (whatever those are, to fit through the holes in the angle brackets - no drilling!). The cable is a 3.5mm stereo extension cable with one of the jacks cut off. The trickiest bit was clearing the insulation off the wires so that I could solder them (dits go through the tip of the jack; dahs through the middle ring; and ground goes from the base of the blade to the base of the jack). I used a dob of hot glue for strain relief. The base is 7.5mm MDF cut to 220mm x 10mm (the extra space acts as a "wrist rest" to stabilise it). I've now wrapped a couple of elastic bands round it to stop it moving around on my desk.
The contacts do need to be cleaned once a fortnight with a few strokes fine sandpaper and then a few strokes of printer paper - the metal is untreated steel so light corrosion can cause degradation of the contact surfaces if you don't do this. But I believe that's no different from many other keys. I keep the gaps as wide as the thickness of a sheet of printer paper.
Surprisingly it has turned out to be a very good paddle. In fact, it is my everyday paddle. My error rate has gone down significantly and I enjoy using it - single paddles seem to suit me.
