Last summer I picked up a well loved Model F AT so I could experience a Model F first hand. I figured I would just clean it up and put it to use with a PS/2 to USB adapter and be done with it. At the time of acquisition, it was super dirty so I jumped right in and pulled off *all* the keys. Only after all the keys were ready to be installed did I realize that you can't put the Model F AT spacebar back on without taking apart the entire keyboard! At that point, I was committed to taking the thing apart just to get the spacebar functional again, so I figured why not go whole hog.
The plan was to:
- tear down and clean the entire board
- replace the foam (you can see how bad it was in the pics)
- spray paint the top barrel plate, the bottom plate had no noticeable corrosion.
- ANSI mod the layout
- replace the controller with an xwhatsit
- add two alt keys
- use the original cables with custom adapters. The black coiled cable was in near perfect condition and I wanted to retain that in the final product.
I already had a partial Model M key set that I could use to harvest the spacebar, ctrl, atl, enter, "\" and backspace, plus other keys from. I was able to get the needed barrels and flippers and controller from some other forum members. The foam was the 1/16th inch from McMasterCarr that has come recommended in other Model F restoration projects.
As of last weekend, I was able to get everything complete and I brought this with me to the NorCal mech keyboard meetup yesterday at WASD. I took some pics along the way. Not super extensive, but should be enough to give you an idea of where I started and where I ended up.
Poor quality cell phone pic before touching the keyboard
After cleaning the keys and casing, you can see the corrosion on the barrel plate. I already replace the enter key with the ANSI enter.
Internal label. Anyone know how to read the date code?
Dirty old foam and key barrels. I have no idea how that much dirty got inside the keyboard!
New foam with template after cutting. I opted against buying a round die cutter and just used a sharp exacto knife. Seemed to work quite well.
Trial placement of keys before installing barrels and flippers. Needed to get the placement right!
Barrels installed
Other side with Model M spacebar stabilizers attached. Just some scrap stainless steel glued using E6000. Tried some epoxy first, but didn't hold as well, seemed to be too brittle.
Internal shot showing the custom adapters for both the micro-USB and LED indicators.
Finished project with inline passive adapters on the original cable.
Notice that I also replaced the numpad with Model M keys, since I liked the brown navigation legends and wanted the bump on 5. I also replace the F and J keys with Model M keys so that i have home row bumps.
This is now my daily driver at work... until someone complains about it!
Hope you enjoy!