A month or two ago I spotted this little paddle on Amazon and bought one, just because I like straight keys and paddles and I’m always willing to add another one to the collection. Only real issue was the 3 little magnets that were used for feet; on any surface other than steel it would slide almost frictionlessly. I was not going to add a half-pound steel block to my radio pack so a new base would be required.
A trip to the basement located some scrap Lexan, 1/8″ thick; sawed out a small rectangle and rounded the corners on the belt sander. I was planning to reuse the little metric flathead screws that formerly held the magnets, so next I drilled and countersunk holes for them. A trial fitting revealed that there was a screw head on the underside of the paddle that would need a matching indentation so everything could lay flat.
This still needed more friction, so I finally settled on a piece of an old mousepad on the underside. This worked great!
This was all done quickly, mostly in the course of an afternoon, and I didn’t want to attach the mousepad material too strongly, in case I wanted to make changes later, so I ended up using two of those 3M Command removable adhesive strips, which seems to work well enough for now. A callsign label completes the job!
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