Vibroplex Bug "yoke"

[W0WCA]

I just ran across an old post regarding the looseness of the yoke on Vibroplex bugs..  Just noticed the “loose yoke” issue on my brand new Original.  This excessive looseness (about .035") offends my mechanical sensibilities.  My solution is a small coil spring between the bottom of the Yoke (part 10) and the mainframe (part 28).  This pushes the Yoke “up” thereby removing the play.  The spring I used has a wire diameter of .020 inch and an outside diameter of .250 inch.  The spring came from Ace hardware.  You need to whack off a short length.  You will want just enough spring to take up the slack but not so much as to cause binding of the yoke on the lever bar. 

[PA0BLAH]

0.035 inch is about 3.5/100 * 25.4 mm, that is roughly 0.9 mm.

Is there not a screw in the bottom plate to take op that slack?

Bob

[W0WCA]

Right, Bob, there is a screw in the bottom plate and also in the top of the Mainframe to adjust slack in the Trunion Pin.  This is, however, not the slack that I am talking about.

[ON6KE]

Get a CW Touch Keyer and all that sort of problems are history.

[PA0BLAH]

Get a CW Touch Keyer and all that sort of problems are history.

That is right, BUT by using a vibroplex you keep the feeling the historian telegraphers experienced alive, and you keep history alive, just like the way you do  by keeping the sigs in the air with your appliance.

It is just like grounding  a tree with an axe and lots of sweat, OR in your proposal: with a gasoline powered chain saw in 2 minutes.

@W0WCA
I understand.
Did you think about other possibilities, not showing modifications visible to the outside world, like:

1. Narrowing the dash yoke in a vice (I shouldn't do that) or
2 Putting brass washers open on one side with a width equal to the Yoke ax diameter, in that case you can even adjust the height of the adjustment, with the goal to align the dash contacts on the same height.

Sorry for the bad use of your language.

Bob