FAME GOG3YLTH-5539 (Blue Alps ver) Restoration thread

[E3E]

Might make more sense to post this here as opposed to over on the "what did you add to your keyboard" thread.

http://deskthority.net/wiki/Fame_GOG3YLTH-5539

A lot of you probably aren't very familiar with the FAME boards, and even less so with this variant. I have never seen another one like this one, which looks crazy similar to the Chicony KB-5161. Most are much smaller and have an odd "Aruz" switch.

So I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to just restore this keyboard to how it looked or add personal flair to it. I figured I didn't ever plan on selling it and really enjoyed its uniqueness and quirkiness (despite being made by a Tai Hao brand, it had some absolutely crap pad-printed caps, and nothing but the spacebar had stabs mounted. I had to add all of that)... So, I went for individuality, I guess!

Some pics from the original owner, well... He got it from a keyboard heap off an e-cycler in Aussieland. Those splotches are bromine stains. Not just something you could wipe (or sand) off, to my dismay.






Aaand after weeks consisting of sanding, retrobriting, painting, and retexturing the bezel:








Extra pics:






Rustoleum Black Sandable Primer, Rustoleum Galaxy Blue ColorShift, Eastwood 2K High Temp Gloss Clear
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The plate was Duplicolor Adhesion Promoter, Duplicolor MetalCast Blue, Duplicolor Clear Effex, Eastwood 2K High Temp Gloss Clear

The bezel was cleaned, sanded, retrobrited, and then retextured with Eastwood 2K High Temp Matte Clear. I just picked High Temp for fun.

Hand-sanding ancient powder coat off of metal is not fun. Doing it carefully in only one direction on the plate for a uniform brushed look was even worse.

I think one of the most nerve-wracking aspects was trying to peel the stickers off of the back panel without tearing them since, as you can see, they were all in rather worn condition.

[njbair]

This looks awesome. I love the metal flecked paint, but seeing the before pics makes this even more impressive.

What is retexturing? Is that like a crackling paint? I'm wondering if I could do something similar to a black plastic Model M case that I hacked and spliced.

[engicoder]

Great work! I love when people give some love to these old boards! I am not a huge fan of color shift paint, but looks pretty nice in this use.

[CPTBadAss]

I really like the paint you used on the back. It kinda reminds me of the paint on my 4704. Nice job

[E3E]

This looks awesome. I love the metal flecked paint, but seeing the before pics makes this even more impressive.

What is retexturing? Is that like a crackling paint? I'm wondering if I could do something similar to a black plastic Model M case that I hacked and spliced.

Thanks NJ! When it comes to retexturing, I think you've got the right idea! I foolishly tried to sand off some of the bromine stains, but no amount of sanding seemed to get the stuff off. It seems like it went deep into the plastic. Even after retrobriting, the area where those stains were are still noticeable. They are a little whiter than the rest of the board.

What I used was a matte 2K clear, but I think any matte clear could work. I used 2K stuff since it's really durable and resistant to chemicals.

I made sure to sand down the entire case first so that the texture would be uniform all around. Otherwise, you'd have it running into the original molded texture. Lucky for me, the texturing wasn't really deep like I've seen on some plastic cases.

You could definitely do it! Just sand down the case smooth and get some matte clear and keep a distance with the spray so that it goes on a bit gritty.

Great work! I love when people give some love to these old boards! I am not a huge fan of color shift paint, but looks pretty nice in this use.

Thanks Engi! I definitely have a soft spot in my heart for old vintage Alps keyboards. I can understand your iffyness on colorshift paint, and it is definitely something I considered could potentially look a little gaudy. I was torn between going for the original black or this.

I ultimately decided on it out of a balance of subtly meets flashiness, I guess. When the board is laid flat as in normal use, the colorshifting nature of the paint causes the bottom panel to look nearly black. So it's only noticeable when you take the time to flip it over and check the bottom, hehe.

Same concept went for the plate! Pretty much, I wanted to make it something you had to look for to see.

Some Tai Hao caps came in and I put them on! The fact that FAME was apparently a brand under Tai Hao makes this a neat little touch of vintage meets modern.

Lastly, I managed to find a user named trenchantgrifter on reddit who happened to buy Blaise170's cool Samsung-branded Chicony 5161 to harvest some blue alps. This was all by chance, haha.

Anyway, they offered to send the bezel to me for free, which was really nice of them. I've since taken the sticker off of it and put it on the Fame's bezel in the same location.

Since the Chicony and Fame look very similar (though I now see that the Fame is actually larger than the 5161 and the Dell AT101), I thought it was a nice nod to their similarities. I really dig Samsung though, so having a vintage sticker that came from another awesome board is the cherry on top for me.

I'll add some pictures in a little bit! Just wish I had a better camera. 

I really like the paint you used on the back. It kinda reminds me of the paint on my 4704. Nice job

Thanks, man. I'm not familiar with what a 4707 is though. Is that the IBM 4707 or even a keyboard XD?