I decided to give one of my Model M Space Savers a makeover last week. I wanted to paint the case black and replace the coiled beige cable with a straight black one.
First, the cable. Since straight black SDL->PS/2 cables are near impossible to find I ended up sacrificing one of my coiled cables. I clipped the straight segments from either end and stripped off the outer cover and the inner wire insulation from both segments. Some wire twisting and a bit of electrical tape later I had a short straight SDL->PS/2 cable, which I coated with black Plasti Dip spray. I mated this with a black PS/2 extension cable and voila! The ugly section where the joint was covered with electrical tape was hidden by attaching it with zip ties to the speaker grill on the bottom of the board. Not the most elegant solution but I always keep the risers up so this isn't a problem for me.
For the case I did some digging around online and found a couple people recommending Dupli-Color Vinyl and Fabric Coating for case and keyboard mods so I picked up a couple cans of flat black and a can of Dupli-Color Adhesion Promoter at the local Pep Boys.
After disassembling the keyboard and masking off the bottom of the board around the label I roughed up the plastic slightly using 600 grit sandpaper. Then I sprayed both sections with two coats of adhesion promoter, waited about 8 minutes and sprayed the first color coat. The second coat went on an hour later. I let it dry overnight and reassembled.
The nice thing about this vinyl coating product is that any overspraying gets absorbed back into the plastic rather than showing up as drips on the painted surface, so you end up with a nice uniform finish.
