I totally would want a dedicated thread on your glove box build. I want to make one! That is amazing!
Totally will! Might take me a few days to get there.
Today, I restored the mouse and keyboard! I'll warn you that there's no satisfaction at the end of this post... I need light to take good "after" photos of the whole system tomorrow, so that will be a separate post. Here's what I started with:
You can clearly see where sunlight yellowed it, and where there were shadows.
The first order of business: pull the keycaps! I 3D printed
this keycap puller, which makes life a lot easier.
All of the keycaps pulled:
Before applying retrobrite, I always scrub everything. You know my methods at this point. I do each key individually, as well as the whole keyboard case.
I think I mentioned this before, but it's worth mentioning again: always pop the Apple badge out before retrobrighting! Otherwise, the retrobrite can mess with the red and yellow colors. I use a paperclip and gently press from the back.
I'm going to use peroxide cream instead of full submersion for the keys, because I haven't come up with a creative way to keep keys from floating around. I work on a cutting board so none of the keys get turned upside down when I move them. So here, I laid down some plastic wrap, arranged all of the keys, and used my trusty free-from-a-hotel-somewhere toothbrush to dab a bunch of hydrogen peroxide cream on each key. Plenty of cream is important here - you don't want anything to dry out. If a spot dries out, you'll get a bright spot and a marbling effect.
Next, I fold the plastic wrap over the top, crease the edges, and roll up the end to create a mostly-airtight seal.
It was evening at this point, and with cream and plastic wrap, I prefer to use the "low and slow" UV lamp, which minimizes the chances of things drying out and causing bleaching or marbling.
Fast forward overnight and to today. At this point I haven't done the keyboard case or cleaned the mouse, so let's get the mouse cleaned up first. Here's the top:
Pretty much the same condition as the Classic II was. Here's the bottom:
I didn't get a picture of the mouse all cleaned up, oops. Satisfaction denied! I did grab some pictures of the ADB connector though. It's pretty gross, I like to pay a bit of attention to these since they're plugged into the keyboard.
Alcohol and a toothbrush helped quite a bit, but it wasn't perfect:
I worked on it with alcohol and baking soda, and that helped a bit more. As I write this, I realize that the majority of my hobby is just cleaning things...
Don't forget the ADB cable itself...
I scrubbed it down with a paper towel and alcohol. It looks nearly perfect now.
And here's the final picture of the connector. It looks almost new, save the pink marker that I couldn't get off.
At this point, the keys had been under a UV lamp in the garage at 80°F/26.5°C all night, so I pulled them out to take a look. I didn't take any photos of this, but I checked out the spacebar and it was
almost done, but not quite. I freshened up the hydrogen peroxide and put them out in the driveway mid-morning to speed up the process. I only had them out there for about 40 minutes in total, rotating them a few times. With that much sun and heat, I watch parts with cream and plastic wrap SUPER closely. They absolutely can't dry out anywhere, or it will ruin the parts!
I got the mouse shell and keyboard shell out in the tub of liquid hydrogen peroxide as well. The mouse ball retainer wanted to float, so I clipped a binder clip to it for some weight and that worked perfectly. The submerged parts stayed out there for several hours. The starting temp was 80°F/26.5°C, but after a few hours climbed to 105°F/40.5°C.
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Rinsing the keys after 40 minutes in the sun! It never takes long with that much UV, heat, and concentration of hydrogen peroxide. It's just a bit risky.
Letting them dry.
At this point, the parts in the liquid were constantly floating, and they seemed like they were completely done anyway. I pulled them out, rinsed everything off, dried them, and brought them inside for assembly. I didn't get any closeups of the keyboard shell, but it basically looks perfect.
It was at this point that I realized that the locking mechanism on the Caps Lock key was broken, likely from my pulling on the keycap. I took the keyboard apart to see if I could fix it.
I pulled up on the back metal plate, and undid clips one at a time while holding pressure. It let go bit by bit until it was free.
After peeling up the membrane, the key switch in question fell right out. Apparently, this is a Mitsumi manufactured keyboard, and they used a proprietary locking switch here that wasn't used on any other keyboard model. There's almost nothing online about these.
The only thing I could find was this page, which was super valuable.
The part that broke is that little broken copper wire, which acts as the locking mechanism. The copper leafspring keeps pressure the wire. I spent a good hour attempting to make a replacement, but it was just too small to work with, and my wire diameter was slightly too large.
I did try pulling the switch from my other keyboard, but it broke in the exact same way when I pulled the key, taking it apart. D'oh! Eventually, I gave up on repairs, deciding that the caps lock just won't lock on this keyboard anymore. Too bad... I love that clicky feeling when I need to yell at some people in an IRC chatroom...
If anyone knows where I might be able to get a replacement switch (or two), please let me know.
And on that terrible disappointment, it's time to end! I'll post final photos of the Macintosh Classic II, Apple Keyboard II, and mouse tomorrow when I have light!
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Also, one last photo that I cannot seem to remove no matter what I do: