Bolt modded my 1390131 Model M

[mr626]

So, I finally bolt modded my 1390131. I knew that it needed doing as soon as I got the board- I could hear the rattle of broken rivets when I picked up the board for the first time. Sure enough, when I opened up the board there were quite a few broken rivets rolling around.

Here's a few pics:

Need to rehost, sorry

I made a couple of mistakes (drilled a couple of holes wonky, put two bolts in numpad area where they get in the way of stabilisers) but nothing I couldn't fix. Not bad for my first try I guess.

I followed the rather excellent guide here:

http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:12093

Overall I'm really happy with the results- the board feels amazingly crisp and solid, and the buckling spring switches feel much snappier. I'm keen do bolt mod my other Model M now (although it doesn't really need it- I checked it the other day and it doesn't look to have any broken rivets at all).

A couple of points about my 1390131:

-It's ANSI, but made in the UK. I thought this was a bit strange- is this sort of combo common?
-Side by side with my white label M, the casing on the 1390131 looks to be a slightly lighter shade of grey. I guess this is normal?
-Is it true that Silver label M's are more rare than others? I guess they are some of the oldest around?

[fohat.digs]

Nice job. I have one almost exactly like it.

My (US) 131 has a heavier metal plate than my later 1401s. Also, it has a shiny yellowish finish instead of dull gray.

Somewhere around here, I posted some suggestions and noted those 2 locations on the extreme right of the numpad.

"drilled a couple" if a couple means only 2 bad ones, you did especially well for the first try.

My first had at least 5 bad ones, after half a dozen I still consider 2 bad ones to be good!

[mr626]

With the numpad area, I did the right thing and didn't drill through any stabiliser holders (or whatever they are called- the bits of plastic on the barrel plate that the stabiliser wire sits in). The problem was that when I put it all back together the stabiliser wires get caught on the heads of the bolts in that area (when I re-read the guide, it turns out that this was mentioned but I somehow missed it- so entirely my fault). I ended up just removing the stabiliser wires from the two keys in question- they still feel fine to me and don't seem to have any additional 'wobble'

Personally, I'd rather have the extra bolts in the numpad area and not have the stabilisers anyway.

Yes, by a couple of holes I literally meant two. They were in the area of the barrel plate between the function keys and the rest of the board. As soon as I had screwed the bolts in all the way, I could see that they were going to cause problems later on so I just went without them. All in all, I ended up having 37 bolts in the completed board.

Anyhow, thanks for the reply. It was a bit daunting to get started, but now that I've done it the process isn't really that bad.