My model f keyboard started acting up months back, very occasionally it would repeat characters at random. One day it properly flipped out.

It was time to give it a proper clean and restoration, so I ordered foam online, which got lost in the mail, but eventually became un-lost.

I took it apart gave it a good clean, but then came the part I was dreading, reassembly.

It’s tough, tougher than I thought it would be.

Here’s some notes/tips:

  • Order clamps - I ended up having to use 12.
  • Make sure the case pins properly align - I scratched my PCB by mistake (it’s fine though).
  • If you snap the flippers feet, you can super glue it back together, but make sure the bottom is still smooth - I broke the spacebar flipper twice, as a result my F10 key doesn’t work, but the other one I glued together (F9) is fine.
  • Make note of how the spacebar stabiliser is connected to the barrel - I forgot to and it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out it had to click in place.
  • The floss trick can get trapped, I had better luck sliding the backplate onto the flippers - but I also broke two flippers so take that with a grain of salt.