[Now with images]

Well, my original plan was to do some sort of grand stylistic mod to a Umax SuperMac S900 I'd had sitting in the spare room for a few weeks now. Then I remembered:

1) Macs Suck
2) The machine itself was unsuited for the one small task I expected of it (playing with OSX, which requires 32M more expensive and rare memory than it has)
3) Macs Suck
4) It's August 23 and I still did nothing towards the contest.
5) Not even using a full-ATX case can make a Mac not suck.

Then I looked at my keyboard.


Under the faded black paint, it's a legendary IBM M. I switched to these after discovering that cheap keyboards last me, well, about six months on average as I beat them down trying to get a click out of them.


This is actually the second time it's been painted. The first time, it wore through on huge patches after a few months near the bottom, but this time, it still gave out in patches. Strangely, the wear points don't correspond in any way to where my hands sit.

So what am I planning?

Yes, that is fake suede.

I thought it might be more resilient than dollar-a-can black paint, and it would give the keyboard a lovely premium feel (take that, smooth-as-plexiglass keyboards!). I bought a full yard of the stuff ($9.30) although I probably only need like 1/8. That gives me plenty of screw-up potential. My original plan was to use either blood-red or black, but the fabric shop had only anemic reds, and no black without a ridiculous pattern. The steel grey colour, OTOH, matches my current case, and will blend nicely wether subsequent cases are black, silver, or -- you mean cases come in other colours than black and silver--?

I suppose, given the heritage of PimpRig here, I should have bought electric purple, but I'm pretty sure that dye causes cancer.

The good old M comes apart with four odd-sized bolts, but we only really need the top shell for this project. This lets me put the keyboard back in place so I can write this as I go along.

I started with a little check-- how could I mark out the cuts without bleed-through to the grey suede. Apparently a sharpie works without too much visible staining.

The M's shape is actually very complex for a keyboard. There are really two surfaces which definie it-- the outer frame, and the inner, "bent" area that contains the actual keys. This prevents you from using a single piece of fabric to cover the whole area. So I decided to start by covering the outside frame. This requires cutting a shape to accomodate the sides, and a hole in the centre for the key area.


While the outer shape worked reasonably well, I quickly began to run into problems keeping the opening square as I tacked the fake suede down with super-glue



So I ripped it out, on to Plan B.

In Plan B, I cover the sides with two pieces of suede, and the centre with a single piece which covers the entire curved shape.

The sides went on nicely

but when I tried to do the centre, I was unable to tack it down neatly enough to allow cutting away the key section.

It was time for Plan C: Lowering expectations.

Covering the key section was turning into an impracticality, an I realized "why bother? This area does not, technically get any abuse, so just cover the outer frame which does get abuse."

That went together smoothly

but I now have the problem of all the residue left from my attempt to cover that area.


This has led me to plan D, coming soon.

More plans the an architect's office - me likey

I'm also taking bets on the over-under for some third-world keyboard manufacturer offering suede keyboards...

Nice work

-MF

I'm sort of surprised that the "luxury keyboard" as a product never took off. I could see selling keyboards and mice trimmed with polished wood or leather and they'd sell very well to the executive crowd-- the sort who gets their car similarly trimmed, instead of in "Hyundai Perma-Suede Deluxe In One Exciting Colour New for 1996"

It seems like, though, appealing surfaces on electronics died a long time ago-- it looks like wood-case stereo gear didn't survive the 1970s, for example. Now everything's that awful silver plastic (which I'm not sure who it appeals to-- it doesn't even look like fake metal!)

One fun on-topic aside... I think I figured out why the paint rubbed where it did: I tend to position my left hand at the edge of the keyboard and then locate keys relative to that (I don't touch type, but I can do 40+ WPM; it disturbs people who see it for the first time at work). Without the frame of the keyboard installed (as I said, Plan D is in progress, pics to follow), I frequently am starting one column off and making entire sentence typos.

Behold: Plan D!

I realized that the "do the sides, then the top and bottom" approach, while relatively fool-proof, produces ugly seams. So I wanted to go back to the "single piece cover" of Plan A, but combine it with the "leave the key area be" of Plan C.

First, we had to fix the mess we created.

Out with the old suede.


Then sand down the beast to a non-offensive texture


Then prime it with white, plastic-friendly primer.


Here's where things started to go wrong:

I used some aerosol paint intended for models, since it was the only aerosol red I had. I had forgotten this was the same red paint which splattered all over my British Rail class 55! The result is a bit of a spotty finish


Next, I actually measured with a measuring tape, and built the "cover" with just the central hole first.

That went over reasonably well, so I tacked it down with a new secret-weapon: elementary-school style glue sticks.
To get it to conform to shape, I pressed it against a book to hold the glue down, then trimmed away the excess with a pen-knife.


The pen-knife produces a very ratty edge, but it's much less jagged than the edges I was getting from shears.

From there, it was just a matter of finishing one side at a time, and gluing down, and behold: a success.


Well, aside from the roughness



and the place where the fabric couldn't be compressed cleanly enough to cover the desired space exactly




It's not bolted together yet... does that hint at future plans?

Okay, home stretch:

Ironically, this was the only phase which could truly and irreperably damage the keyboard.

Green LEDs? That's so... 1992. Wait a minute....



The LED card is held on by a thin plastic cable, easily removed...




...and a hardened adhesive foam block which requires roughly the same amount of force as would be used to decapitate a bison to remove.

You see this cute little PCB afterwards, which needed to be peeled clean from foam-block.



So what LEDs to replace with? Blue? That's cliche. Plus I only have two. Red? Overkill on a red frame. What's left?

A string of white-LED christmas lights I got a year or two ago at Target... like $2.50 for 25 white LEDs, an INCREDIBLE value I hope they repeat this year.



I carefully desolder the old LEDs, and drive the new ones into the old holes, only pulling up one lead in the process. :/ The net result is



When I plugged the keyboard back in, it blinked the caps and scroll lights, then the num-lock light. Apparently, that's what happens when you plug an M back into a soft-off PC, but a bit un-nerving, given my concern about PCB damage.

With it all hooked up, you notice that the LEDs are bright enough to be seen from space.





How to fix this?

I had a roll of auto tint (95% light-blocking) from another project (tinted cover for a VFD to improve readability). It's fun how if you ever buy a supply for a case mod, you'll have enough to last for 20 more.

A little strip of the material produces a nice "black-out" look, and really cuts the brightness, but it strongly accents the slight blue tint of the LED light, making it almost violet.



At this point, the SPCK (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Keyboards) is probably knocking down my door, so I think this is a reasonable goal-line for the project.

to get rid of that edge, you could actually make a hem.

I would look much better that way.

I still like this project though.