IBM Model M dental floss foam mod is a resounding success! Plus a question...

[jkercado]

Just did it tonight to my trusty old Model M...And I'm loving the results! What the foam does is basically kill the high-frequency ping/click sound you get on key rebound. If done right, you preserve clicky goodness while lowering the perceived sound level noticeably. The keys also feel a bit more "cushiony", and the resistance is a teeny bit higher. I do like how it sounds now. I'm typing right now on it and it definitely has improved the experience for me. I guess my co-workers will be a tad happier now when I go machine gun on the keys!

The trick is to use a short length of foam. After putzing around with different sizes, I used around 1/4" per spring, and made sure that the foam went down to more or less the middle of the spring. If any of you guys want to "silence" your keyboard a bit, give it a try!

On another subject, I'm a natural modder, and I like to put my personal imprint on everything. I was looking at the gray Unicomp keys available ($25 for the whole set), and thought about the gray ones. But on pics they seem a bit too bluish, which would look rather bad against the IBM soft white. Can any of you guys confirm if this is true for the Unicomp gray keys? Are they too "intense" and kinda bluish?

Thanks!

[dorkvader]

The metallic grey ones that are standard on their keyboards are excellent, not blue-ish at all. I would put some on my M, but I'm bolt-modding it at the moment (mcmaster carr is super fast in the shipping!) I can't speak for any of their other colours.

[LukStarkiller]

Did you take a image with the mod done?
It would be interesting to saw how is done exactly ^^

[fohat.digs]

Here is what mine looked like. The threads go into excruciating detail on bolt-modding.


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Edit: Wait, did you want pictures of the bolt-mod or the flossing?


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[LukStarkiller]

I was asking about the flossing, thanks ^^

[fohat.digs]

I have done this twice, both times when the spring assemblies were removed from the keyboard. It should be possible to gently push the piece of floss into the spring, mounted in place, but it much like threading a needle.

For me, holding the spring in one hand while threading in the floss with the other was difficult enough. If I did not succeed on the first or second try, the floss was probably too bent or damaged, and needed to be discarded and started over.

The more you handle the floss, the more floppy it becomes, even if you are trying to straighten or stretch it.

[fohat.digs]

I never wish to take credit for following the directions of others.

Mostly, everything I know about this stuff I learned here, or by trial and error on my own (sometimes, both, unfortunately).

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[jkercado]

SKCheng invented this one.  Makes sense.  He was a dentist.

http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:9761

And the Unicomp gray keys are indeed gray.  With Metallic flakes.  It's just Unicomp couldn't use a modern device like a digital camera correctly.

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Thanks for that pic. They would definitely look terrible on my creamy Model M. I might go with the all-pearl look then. The warm gray keys make the Model M look a bit outdated...

[jkercado]

I never wish to take credit for following the directions of others.

Mostly, everything I know about this stuff I learned here, or by trial and error on my own (sometimes, both, unfortunately).

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I didn't even pull out the springs. Just took off all the keys and started cutting and inserting. ONe thing that helped a bit was rolling the foam bits between my fingers and quickly inserting them into the spring.