deskthority

Greetings, Deskthority!

I picked up a box of old keyboards at an estate sale, and among them was a handful of Model M and Model F keyboards.

I am in IT, and consider myself a mechanical enthusiast, but I know these can be expensive devices, and are worth my time to refurbish *properly*.

The Model F / AT I will be cleaning up and re-connectorizing myself, for PS/2. No questions here, unless some folks can recommend mods.

The Model F / Bigfoots - I think I want to replace the PCB on these, with the xwhatsit controller. Any recommendations?

Lastly, one Bigfoot is in shambles - The case has big divots and a crack, and it's missing a bunch of keycaps. The steel and electronics are pristine, though. I was thinking of doing it over in black, to cover everything up and install black / dark grey keycaps in addition to the xwhatsit controller... or do I do my best to refresh it as-is, or do I put it all in another stock case?

pics?

Pics attached here. My bad!
The bottom pic is the lot, less the 2 I am working one - One F/AT and one F/Bigfoot.
Bottom middle of the first pic, you can see the beat up case - This is AFTER cleaning. The hairline crack is at the top right, and the divot at the right bottom is hard to miss, it's deep into the plastic.

Neat!

The divot looks like a paint chip.

shouldn't be too hard to set up with an xwhatsit

Was the barrelplate painted gray when you got it?

Weezer - No, that's me. The paint is THICK, I assumed this was a weird gouge.

Both plates were heavily corroded with mouse filth, and the Bigfoot also had a thick coat of automotive repair detritus. Cleaned, cleaned again, sanded down to remove the rust and given a coat of self-etching primer. The Bigfoot got a coat of black on top, it looks very nice in my opinion.