Thanks Maledicted, good notes on the force not entirely a matter of the grams weight required to press the key.
Dye sublimation update:
We finally have some approvable key sets! See the below example - please note some keys have been slightly cut off in the photo. And the photo was taken with a camera, not a scanner, so there may be some distortion.
I hope the below key set will be representative of the new Model F sets going out to everyone. The alignment is within the original IBM Model F tolerances I have personally seen from dozens of originals I have collected / restored over the years. The most salient note to the factory is the Print Screen type keys which are a little too close for comfort to the edge but I would not be exchanging someone's keys or key sets if in general they match what IBM deemed acceptable on a sold product; see my 11/10/20 post for more details - one paragraph copied below:
"Some keys will always be slightly out of alignment tolerance - even so with IBM - so the goal is not perfection. According to my digital caliper measurements of an excellent, probably 90th+ percentile IBM XT keyboard example with outstanding sublimation quality, 24% of its keys aligned out of the bounds of the standard deviation (an amazingly tiny 0.15mm!). IBM's out of bounds on this set ranged up from 0.18mm to 0.46mm variance from the average alignment of the key set (still excellent results). As I've seen having owned and refurbed dozens of F's over the years, the standard deviation was far larger / looser on many of the other, later production units."
If all goes well the factory is going to try to make a small number of sets of US ANSI, Apple/Mac, and HHKB 6 key and send them to me before Chinese New Year break. That way I can start getting orders out.
To keep things simple I am not going to accept shipping requests for the keys and cannot answer questions of "is my keyboard in this key set batch" (please don't ask!), though everyone can still continue to request separate shipping without keys. Everything will go out in priority order, putting at top of the list the single digit serials, early bird tooling volunteers, and custom/low serial orders in order of the date of your first keyboard ordered. With current production estimates there will be no remaining sets in the first batch for other keyboards. In keeping with policies over the past year, your order cannot go out if even one item cannot ship.
Also now that the second container shipment is on its way, beginning in March you can start to request separate shipment without keys for a wider variety of keyboards. Below is a list of the keyboards expected to be received as part of the second container shipment, arriving around the end of February:
Product Name Color Layout Keys
Compact F62 Black ANSI Enter Black unprinted keys
Compact F62 Black ANSI Enter
Compact F62 Black ANSI Enter Pearl+pebble blank keys
Compact F62 Black ISO Enter Black unprinted keys
Compact F62 Black ISO Enter
Compact F62 Black Split Right Shift and Split Backspace Black unprinted keys
Compact F62 Black Split Right Shift and Split Backspace
Compact F62 Black Split Right Shift and Split Backspace Pearl+pebble blank keys
Compact F62 Black Split Right Shift and 2U backspace Black unprinted keys
Compact F62 Black Split Right Shift and 2U backspace Pearl+pebble blank keys
Compact F62 Black Split Right Shift and 2U backspace and short spacBlack unprinted keys
Compact F62 Carolina Blue Split Right Shift and Split Backspace Pearl+pebble blank keys
Compact F62 Standard Gray ANSI Enter Black unprinted keys
Compact F62 Standard Gray ANSI Enter Pearl+pebble blank keys
Compact F62 Standard Gray ISO Enter
Compact F62 Standard Gray Split Right Shift and Split Backspace Black unprinted keys
Compact F62 Standard Gray Split Right Shift and Split Backspace
Compact F62 Standard Gray Split Right Shift and Split Backspace Pearl+pebble blank keys
Compact F62 Standard Gray Split Right Shift and 2U backspace
Compact F62 Standard Gray Split Right Shift and 2U backspace Pearl+pebble blank keys
Compact F77 Black ANSI Enter Black unprinted keys
Compact F77 Black ANSI Enter
Compact F77 Black ANSI Enter Pearl+pebble blank keys
Compact F77 Black ISO Enter Black unprinted keys
Compact F77 Black ISO Enter
Compact F77 Black ISO Enter Pearl+pebble blank keys
Compact F77 Black Split Right Shift and Split Backspace Black unprinted keys
Compact F77 Black Split Right Shift and Split Backspace
Compact F77 Black Split Right Shift and 2U backspace Black unprinted keys
Compact F77 Black Split Right Shift and 2U backspace
Compact F77 Black Split Right Shift and 2U backspace Pearl+pebble blank keys
Compact F77 Carolina Blue ANSI Enter
Compact F77 Carolina Blue Split Right Shift and Split Backspace
Compact F77 Carolina Blue Split Right Shift and 2U backspace Black unprinted keys
Compact F77 Carolina Blue Split Right Shift and 2U backspace
Compact F77 Dark Blue ANSI Enter
Compact F77 Dark Blue ISO Enter
Compact F77 Dark Blue Split Right Shift and 2U backspace
Compact F77 Regular Gray ANSI Enter Black unprinted keys
Compact F77 Regular Gray ANSI Enter
Compact F77 Regular Gray ANSI Enter Pearl+pebble blank keys
Compact F77 Regular Gray ISO Enter
Compact F77 Regular Gray Split Right Shift and Split Backspace Black unprinted keys
Compact F77 Regular Gray Split Right Shift and Split Backspace
Compact F77 Regular Gray Split Right Shift and Split Backspace Pearl+pebble blank keys
Compact F77 Regular Gray Split Right Shift and 2U backspace Black unprinted keys
Compact F77 Regular Gray Split Right Shift and 2U backspace
F62 Black ANSI Enter Black unprinted keys
F62 Black ANSI Enter
F62 Black ANSI Enter and Split Backspace Black unprinted keys
F62 Black ANSI Enter and Split Backspace
F62 Black ISO Enter
F62 Black ISO Enter Pearl+pebble blank keys
F62 Black Split Right Shift and Split Backspace and short lBlack unprinted keys
F62 Black Split Right Shift and 2U backspace Black unprinted keys
F62 Black Split Right Shift and 2U backspace
F62 Black Split Right Shift and 2U backspace Pearl+pebble blank keys
F62 Industrial Gray ANSI Enter Pearl+pebble blank keys
F62 Industrial Gray F62 scumnc ANSI Enter
F62 Industrial Gray ISO Enter Pearl+pebble blank keys
F62 Industrial Gray Split Right Shift and 2U backspace
F62 Industrial Gray Split Right Shift and 2U backspace Pearl+pebble blank keys
F62 Off-White/Beige F62 scumnc ANSI Enter
F62 Off-White/Beige ISO Enter
F62 Off-White/Beige ISO Enter Pearl+pebble blank keys
F62 Off-White/Beige ISO Enter and Split Right Shift, 2U backspace Pearl+pebble blank keys
F62 True Red ANSI Enter Black unprinted keys
F62 True Red ANSI Enter
F62 True Red Split Right Shift and 2U backspace
F77 Black ANSI Enter Black unprinted keys
F77 Black ANSI Enter Pearl+pebble blank keys
F77 Black ISO Enter Black unprinted keys
F77 Black ISO Enter Pearl+pebble blank keys
F77 Black Split Right Shift and Split Backspace Black unprinted keys
F77 Black Split Right Shift and Split Backspace and short lBlack unprinted keys
F77 Black Split Right Shift and 2U backspace Black unprinted keys
F77 Black Split Right Shift and 2U backspace Pearl+pebble blank keys
F77 Industrial Gray ANSI Enter Black unprinted keys
F77 Industrial Gray ANSI Enter
F77 Industrial Gray ANSI Enter Pearl+pebble blank keys
F77 Industrial Gray ISO Enter Pearl+pebble blank keys
F77 Industrial Gray Split Right Shift and Split Backspace Black unprinted keys
F77 Industrial Gray Split Right Shift and Split Backspace
F77 Industrial Gray Split Right Shift and Split Backspace Pearl+pebble blank keys
F77 Off-White/Beige ISO Enter Pearl+pebble blank keys
F77 True Red ANSI Enter Black unprinted keys