deskthority

Yeah, kinda always wondered. Does it make it feel better or is it just the best way to fix missing rivets?

I definitely think it improves the feel, the original plastic rivets never held the assembly together tight enough in my opinion.

Was thinking about it lately too.
Mine has one missing rivet. Not touching it right now, but have planned heavy modding in the future. Just need decent lcd display and some other parts.

Still hesitating between bolt mod, screw mod or just leaving it as is, until needed.

wobbled wrote: I definitely think it improves the feel, the original plastic rivets never held the assembly together tight enough in my opinion.

Different experience here. Even when it was all bolted, the feel of the switches changed for the worst.

Liked the original feeling of all the keys but when it got modded certain keys had a nasty throw back. It lost it's traditional feel with the plastic rivets.

That is why when a bolt mod fails, it's usually dumped on Flebay for a quick sale .

With a true bolt mod for sure, and possibly for a screw mod, the keyboard can be "tuned"

Since you are replacing soft plastic with steel, it is possible to make the assembly much tighter, painfully so.

When you have a screwdriver and/or a wrench in your hand, it is only natural to want to tighten down hard.

I recommend the opposite: start out with everything just barely finger tight. Since I always do a "bolt mod" (ie using nuts and washers) my technique is to tighten the nuts only with the 4mm socket held in my fingers, and I would describe my preferred tension as just barely "snug" and perhaps even just short of "snug"

There is simply no reason to crank any of them down tight, and it is not hard to prevent the pivot plates from working at all if you get too zealous. And, of course, it is important to tension them all as close to the same as possible.

The other notable change is that you can change the layout more easily. Depending on your layout [ISO, ANSI, etc.] certain barrels are populated and certain ones are not. The membrane has all the spots regardless, so you can do crazy things like a Focus-like key on the right-shift, or have an ANSI layout with an extra key for an ISO left-shift split or split the + on the numpad to = and +... All you need is a flipper/spring.

This is only apropos if you are Soarer's/TMK/etc. modding it, since the mapping may not be what you want, but you *have* the possibility.

I am replacing a dead membrane in a Model M from Unicomp sometime in the near future and since I have a buttload of extra flippers/springs, I am going to put flippers in all barrels, since you can (with a little finesse) replace springs on the fly. In this way, I can mod it after the fact [and I really have no shortage of spare flippers for model Ms].

Good question. Answer: bolt mod changes the key feel. For the better? That's preference. I have both here and I still prefer unmodded the way IBM shipped them! I wouldn't force a mod if you don't need it.

One big bonus of the screw mod is you can adjust later.

I will say it again:

If you have a modded M and don't like it as well as the original, loosen all the screws by half a turn (or more).

You might be surprised.