deskthority

Got my Model F 104 in the mail yesterday and it's up and running today! Quite exciting.

I did the floss mod. Something about a Model F I guess that's not coated in nearly 50 years of coffee and corrosion that gives it that non-vintage tone. I'm going to work on getting rid of some of this slightly hollow echo soon.

Has anyone documented any other acoustic mods than the floss mod?

By the way - as someone who has collected Ms and Fs for about 20 years, I can confirm that I had to do nothing more (or quite a bit less actually) than I have had to do when receiving a well-worn F or M: normal servicing of removing keys, cleaning detritus and re-connecting springs, popping keys off and on, and so forth. Just wanted to send some positive feedback as there's a fair amount of negative feedback here already. Getting these running does take a little effort and you get to know how the keyboard works in the process so you can be more confident in the future...... (okay hm, period sounds funny - time for some tweaks......) ...........

Thanks for your feedback tswilson! Glad everything is up and running. Various sound mods have been gathered in the manual on the project web site appendix section. If anyone knows of any other recommended mods, please link to them or let us know!

One quick update is that I pulled the back panel off, and tapped around. Everything was pretty dead-sounding except for the rear panel itself. Loaded that up with Blu-tack, bolted it back on, and that solved most of the hollow sound. I still want to tune a little more - especially the space bar, but that will take some foam which I do not have handy. Will work on that!

So far so good!

-s

Interesting - please share photos! I guess you wanted to reduce a ringing sound?

Okay, took some time to work on my keyboard and wanted to post another update with some photos - so I can get a little more time testing out the keys.

I'll start by saying that all of this is subjective at this point. I own umpteen Model Ms and four Model F ATs. I used two model Fs as daily drivers for a good ten or 15 years - one at the office and one at home on a mac. I will fully admit to being more than a little particular when it comes to keyboards.

As I said in my earlier thread, I could hear the rear panel ringing a bit and added some blu-tack. Foam probably would have done, but why use foam when you can add even more mass? Really, it's just that is all I had at hand that would dampen anything. I tried a few felt stickies, but those didn't do enough. Here's what that looks like:
It sounds better than it looks. The panel produces a dead thud instead of a ringing.

Great... but there was still just a little something that was off. The Model F ATs produced a nice clack, little to no spring boing, and no rattle at all.

So I tried the floss mod, some foam in the space bar, and a dab of Super Lube 92003 on the space bar stabilizer contact points. The space bar is great like that! The floss mod was good, there was much less ring, but still a little rattle-y tone. Not quite vintage F yet.

So, I decided to go a little more drastic. I wanted to see what the differences in the Model F AT and the Model F 104 were on the inside, so I took the panels off, exposing the barrels and flappers for both. I noticed that the barrels had no noticeable visual differences, but there was a difference in the flappers.

The 104 Flappers in both shots are left. I think the main difference that provides some acoustic impact is that the front-to-back depth of the pivots is just a tad bit shorter on the 104 than the AT. This means that there is just a tad more room for it to move around... but there could be anything else about those as well that are producing some acoustic difference.

No matter - I'm transplanting them to see what impact it has!
Interesting. Okay so I took as many barrels and flappers from the AT and swapped into the 104. And Viola!
Ha! I don't know if you can see from here, as it also looks a bit like lens distortion, but the barrels from the AT are at a different angle!!! OMG that would have driven me insane.

So I opened it back up and swapped back in the 104 barrels, but left the AT flappers on just the main alpha/control keys, arrow keys, escape key, and the like.

Of course in this process, I've removed the floss mod - new flappers, new springs.

It's as close as I've had to vintage build so far! I think I will redo the floss mod and I'm thinking this will be it!

Great to see these mods! Thanks for sharing the details.

What were the findings of your swap with old flippers and putting back the new barrels?

Yes, the barrels product pages notes that the barrel angle may be slightly different for an older Model F keyboard, so you may not want to use old barrels in a new Model F or vice versa.

The different flappers with the new barrels work - and just have a slightly different tone. I like it. I will definitely be keeping this setup. I'll see what the new flappers sound like on the older keyboard and let you know whenever I get that put back together.

-s