Wico joystick question

[Apollo]

I have just taken delivery of a NOS WICO joystick. It a leaf switch stick and is supposed to be a dedicated 4 way stick. It seems though that when I try to reach the diagonals on it I can? There isn't any sort of restrictor. Can any one post a pic of 8 way vs 4 way ( this is a 4 way dedicated stick remember ) or do I just have to bend the leaf switches so that the diagonals can't be reached. Also there seems to be a washer stuck in there. Weird.

Confused

[paigeoliver]

They all have washers in them, at least all 7 of mine do. That is normal.

Is the base black or grey? The 4-ways are supposed to be grey, and the 8-ways black.

On some 4-ways you can still just barely hit the diagonals. The Ms. Pac/Galaga replacement 4-way can hit the diagonals if you try hard to do it (hard to hold it there, but you can trigger them, learned that when I accidently played Robotron with one of them and an 8-way).

[Frostillicus]

I have 2 wico sticks I got from videoconnect.com and have a heck of a time hitting diagonals, even though it's supposed to be an 8way.  It's a long stick and has it's a blue ball-top.  There is a washer, no restrictor...same issue you are having.

[Apollo]

Yeah it's weird I was expecting something with some kind of diamond restrictor.
The base is black and the shaft has a big red knob on top lol. The leaves have a copper bit then the 2 sides of the leaf then a plastic bit. Does anyone have a pic of the base of an 8 way vs the base of a 4 way, that would really help.

[Tailgunner]

Just so happens my wico sticks are currently uninstalled so pics are easy.

Black 8 way vs. Grey 4 way top side. note stick differences. (blue for 8 way, red for 4 way.)

[Tailgunner]

8 way bottom.

[Tailgunner]

4 way bottom. hard to see, but the bottom has flat spots like the top to keep you from hitting diagonals.

[Apollo]

OK I have a black base with red ball top, now I'm confused.

OK just saw your second pic, the guy has sent me a @#$%! 8 way with a 4 way ball top! And the overnight courier took a week to get here to, unbelievable.
Thanks for your help.

[Tailgunner]

There are black 4 ways.

Biggest thing to look at are the holes through the base that the stick goes through. If the holes are round, it's a 8 way base. If they have flat spots, it's a 4 way.

[Apollo]

Holes are round, I guess the guy may not know his stock well enough, he obviously just saw the red handle and sent me that without checking, it's derfinately 8 way when I compare to those pics. I have called him and let him know so he's going to sort it.
Thanks for your help, the pics were great.

[spidermonkey]

Don't get confused with the shaft lenths because both 8 and 4-ways were offered with either of the two different shaft lenths for wood or metal mounting and they are interchangable. Like tailgunner said you have to look at the holes where the shaft passes through. The gray/black color identification works if your lucky but it isn't full proof. DEDICATED Wico 4-ways are gray but heres where it gets a little confusing. They did offer a black based stick that contained assorted actuators in the package and was labelled 4/8-way. The base was actually an 8-way. They threw in a larger actuator for 8-way use and also a  super small actuator. Small enough so that it wasn't able to make contact with two leaf switches at the same time. The result was a black 8-way base with the typical round (non restrictive) shaft holes BUT with a tiny actuator which allowed the 8-way stick to mimic a 4-way. So if you had to you could probably make a smaller actuator to make it less sensitive. You'll see these 4/8 way Wico leaf sticks come up on Ebay once in a while. I saw an nos one still in the unopened plastic bag and it came with several actuators. Wico came out with these convertable sticks later on so that operators would only have to stock one stick instead of two. These were the last type of leaf switch joystick that Wico offered before they abandoned all leaf switch joystick production all together. (that was a sad sad day ). I think that these are the ones that are floating around and throwing confusion into what used to be an accurate black 8-way  gray 4-way color identification code.

[paigeoliver]

Wico also made a nearly identical microswitch stick that used most of the same parts (same handles too), and had nearly an identical feel. I have one of them at home. Only thing different is the actuator, and the fact that it has microswitches in the place that would have leaves.

[spidermonkey]

I have since changed all the sticks on my cab from microswitch to leaf but I the other day I took apart a cherry microswitch and  in the process of altering it to eliminate the clicking. I'm pretty sure it can be done. By no means will it make a microswitch stick feel like a leaf stick but maybe one step closer.