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Shoutout to the retired IBM guy at the Akron swap meet who showed me the spring trick
I picked up a grimy Model M at a swap meet in Akron back in March, keys felt mushy and I was ready to give up and part it out. An older guy at the next table watched me poke at it for a while, then leaned over and said the buckling spring isn't the problem, the rivets are, and he popped the case open with a screwdriver he pulled from his jacket pocket. He showed me how a few loose rivets will make the whole assembly feel dead, then walked me through replacing them with small bolts and nuts, 12 of them on the top row alone. I kid you not, we sat there on a folding table for 40 minutes while he explained the whole thing like it was nothing. He wouldn't take a dime for the little bag of hardware he handed me, and I got the board typing clean by that evening. Turned a $10 junker into my daily driver, which honestly felt like a big deal for a guy who usually breaks more than he fixes. Has anyone here tried the bolt mod on a full board, and did you bother doing all the rivets or just the loose ones?
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sean_perry1d ago
Man, I'd probably break three rivets before lunch, so kudos to you for getting that board running.
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