Gloves really are a must with the Salon Care 40. Be very careful with non-white / beige plastic. I "burnt" the brown keys on my Lisa's keyboard in about 45 minutes :( -J On Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 5:03 PM, John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
Hey folks, You probably all know this but I wanted to report success in restoring some old Focus 2001 mechanical keyboards... I've had these around since the BBS era, and they were quite yellowed (and pretty disgusting otherwise too.. :( )..
Anyway, after doing some research -- Salon Care 40 Volume Creme is basically "retrobright" in a bottle. $5 for 32 oz, and I still have a lot left over (next case to restore = Amiga 1200).
Attached pic shows basically a before and after (two different keyboards, but both were equally as bad).
A few things I learned:
- 4 hours of sunlight (UV) is enough, 6 hours with clouds is just enough with the solution
- Use cling wrap over top of any plastic you've applied the solution to to keep it wet
-Soaking the keycaps in dish soap and hot water for a few hours does wonders, then:
- You can be a little lazy with keys by putting them in a glass bowl, pouring 3% hydrogen peroxide over everything, and putting aluminum foil underneath to make sure UV bounces everywhere. With this method you'll probably need a second bath or manual application of the creme to restore all keys properly.
- I used a lot of q-tips and 90% rubbing alcohol to clean the keyboard and electronics internals
- Of course wear gloves with this stuff
- Using a keyboard with an XT/AT switch on a modern PC is fun :)
-- Jason Perkins 313 355 0085