Alright so a bit of a report on this, I decided to take a stab at removing the keys from the keyboard in the worst shape. Key removal tool might as well be called a key destroying tool snapped them instantly every time. Also tried with a few other tools all instantly snapping the key stems. Nothing was working except I just destroyed more keys.
Finally I decided to take the whole thing apart and see if I could remove them from the back.
One million plastic clips holding the metal back on were surprisingly supple and I didn’t break any.
On the back this is what I found…
I discovered that I could push a screwdriver past the rubber band and through the hole to bust out the key but it still broke a bit of the stem due to the uneven pressure. Switching to my Mac mini board removal tool which has flat ends worked great but was really awkward to use in this way as it’s not how it’s meant to work plus it didn’t reach the middle keys.
so I decided to just remove the top of a cheap screwdriver and make it flat with my grinder to make a sort of key removal tool.
using that I was able to remove all the keys on the donor keyboard and only managed to break one fortunately I have a duplicate of that key.
The backing was filthy so I scrubbed it with a toothbrush in the sink and it cleaned up really nice.
I think I’ve decided to just go for broke and rebuild the donor keyboard instead and attempt to remove the keys that are missing from the other board. It is just to gross to leave it that way and we’ll if I screw up and break a one of one key I guess so be it. I’m going to try and restore to wholeness one of the rarest and crappiest apple keyboards ever made. But that’s all for tonight I’m tired of this project for now and I need a break. Or I’m going to break some more stuff on accident.