Some of it will depend on your plans for stabilizing the larger keys. Those stupid plastic tabs inserted through the barrel plate to clip down the wires are some of the few really lame and bad decisions that IBM made in the Model F design.
If you are not a purist, you may want to go to plastic barrel insert stabilizers for everything except the spacebar. I like the flexibility of using Model M spacebars, so I have made metal tabs attached with epoxy, but wcass has simple method of using loose washers and gravity.
Unicomp has lots of modern replacements, but clickykeyboards sells vintage salvaged IBM gear.
The inserts are easy to remove, you push them forward from the back towards the front with a small flat head screwdriver. You will wreck 10% of them but it may not matter, except for the spacebar. Do it last, after you get the hang of it, and they are a little sturdier anyway. They can be re-seated later, if necessary, with a little work. I put a flat head screwdriver into the "mouth" of the opening and press down with the shaft of the screwdriver parallel to the plate surface.
With the tabs off, you can attack the plate with gusto, using whatever harsh methods you like. Just remember that the thicker the paint job, however, the harder it will be to re-seat the tabs into their holes, since the paint will have reduced the internal diameter of the opening.
I love Rustoleum paint and now there is a line of black and metallic paints called "hammered" that are very handsome and wonderful, with the added benefit of disguising minor imperfections and not showing dirt as much as either glossy or flat alternatives.
. Someone needs to give me the idiots guide to this, lol.
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