IBM 5251 restauration

Tyr

09 Jul 2016, 23:42

So I got an IBM 5251 from the infamous rust merchant and it was in pretty poor shape overal. The shell has taken a beating, note the yellow patch at the top left where they've completely removed the painted textured upper layer. The spacebar was rusted in the down postion and wouldn't budge. Keycaps were very dirty indeed, but inspired some hope as most were not yellowed and the only ones that show actual signs of use were the numpad ones !

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The contamination shield was just rotted and seems to have actually captured and held moisture under it.

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The underside is completely rusted as well, the rubber shock guard between the switches and the plate is disgusting and disintegrates when handled. Switches are surprisingly OK, but a bit scratchy from particulate that got in there.

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Some ID on the back of the sense plate assembly. German board, made in Amsterdam ?

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After sanding the plate it still shows signs of discolouration. I wanted to go to a raw steel look, but decided I would paint it because I just couldn't get rid of the color difference with the tools I have.

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Using a steel punch to make a new rubber mat for the back of the plate. Tiresome but necessary because otherwise the switches were too loose.

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Painted plate and finished rubber mat.

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Disassembled all the switches to clean them. The metal stems and springs were given a vinegar bath to clean off the rust. The plastic housing just cleaned out with soapy water and the plastic stems gently wiped down with antistatic cleaner.

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Before and after example of a switch

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Cleaned switches in the painted plate. Things are beginning to take shape.

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Keycaps were cleaned with just some luke warm soapy water and fitted. With the addition of an Xwhatsit controller it is now actually useable !

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Befehl ist Befehl !

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Reassembled it can now be used, but it's still ugly with it's busted case :( Planck for scale 8-)

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I decided to use plastidip to "paint" the case. This worked reasonably well. It's easy to apply and could be used on both the plastic top and metal bottom half of the shell. Just see the color difference. It's not snow white either. The dip is white in natural light and strangely slightly beige-tinted in artificial light. Perfect for this keyboard.

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Top and bottom done.

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Full view of the dipped top. It actually filled in the ugly yellow splotch nicely. You can hardly even see it anymore except when it catches the light if you look very closely at a certain angle. The white also makes the discolouration on a couple of the dark grey keys look less noticable, that's a bonus.

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The finished keyboard still has some issues: the controller connector doesn't seem to grab onto the sense plate properly causing it to type garbage sometimes, solved by pushing on the controller. I'm thinking of maybe layering some solder on the sense plate connections to make them thicker.

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seebart
Offtopicthority Instigator

10 Jul 2016, 00:13

Awesome job! Great to see these 5251's getting the care they need. Mine still is in similarly bad shape as yours was. Looks great. Congrats.

Apart from the technical issues with the keyboard, how do you like Beamspring as a switch?

Tyr

10 Jul 2016, 00:27

seebart wrote: Awesome job! Great to see these 5251's getting the care they need. Mine still is in similarly bad shape as yours was. Looks great. Congrats.

Apart from the technical issues with the keyboard, how do you like Beamspring as a switch?
Thanks. It's an absolute dream to type on. I'm a big fan of the old style spherical keycaps and now the switches have been cleaned they are smooth, perfectly weighted for my tastes and make a lovely clicking noise that make my wife batty :lol: This beast is so big I don't have a good place to put it though, it ends up being a bit too high up for comfort on my desk.

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seebart
Offtopicthority Instigator

10 Jul 2016, 00:41

Yeah Beamspring is loud alright, how many hours did you spend with all this work?

Tyr

10 Jul 2016, 00:53

seebart wrote: Yeah Beamspring is loud alright, how many hours did you spend with all this work?
Not that much. I did it over 3 weekends. The biggest timesinks were sanding the plate and other metal parts (by hand), because the rust had gotten into the switch holes and I had to use a dremel type tool to get in there, and disassembling and cleaning the switches. I also individually buffed the metal stems and springs with an abrasive sponge to shine them up after the vinegar. Something like 20 hours total I guess ?

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seebart
Offtopicthority Instigator

10 Jul 2016, 01:07

OK I see, that's not too bad then. I'll let all of you 5251 owners do your projects so I can get some feedback and then continue with my construction site ;) :
Spoiler:
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Chyros

10 Jul 2016, 02:05

I always love seeing old keyboards like this getting the love they deserve. Some gorgeous work is being done on these oldies :D .

I'm amazed the pan hasn't rusted on the inside, by the way. Even the cobalt plate on my F has small rust marks. That pan looks absolutely spotless =o .

Tyr

10 Jul 2016, 02:45

Chyros wrote: I'm amazed the pan hasn't rusted on the inside, by the way. Even the cobalt plate on my F has small rust marks. That pan looks absolutely spotless =o .
I can assure you that was the only place not touched by rust :lol:

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Nuum

10 Jul 2016, 04:45

Nice! If I may ask, what did you use as rubber mat? Was it hard to disassemble all the switches or is there a trick?
I have the same task ahead of me, but I'll just leave the case away and hack something together from wood or something.

terrycherry

10 Jul 2016, 08:27

Nuum wrote: Nice! If I may ask, what did you use as rubber mat? Was it hard to disassemble all the switches or is there a trick?
I have the same task ahead of me, but I'll just leave the case away and hack something together from wood or something.
It's hard to disassemble the switch, especially it could damage the switch when pull out the keycap.
What's your keyboard?

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Nuum

10 Jul 2016, 11:24

I've also got a 5251 Beamspring in equally bad condition.

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seebart
Offtopicthority Instigator

10 Jul 2016, 17:21

terrycherry wrote: It's hard to disassemble the switch, especially it could damage the switch when pull out the keycap.
Yes Nuum and terrycherry, (and anybody not aware of this) you want to avoid this at all costs when pulling Beamspring keycaps:
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when pulling Beamspring keycaps from stems that are in bad shape the metal stem can come off the plastic stem, this is very fixable but one then needs to improvise. I'm sure many of you have noticed that the Beamspring switch has quite a bit of wobble / play on the keycap when normally mounted, that is simply due to the design of the switch itself IMO which is quite elaborate in design and susceptible to not only dirt but also wear. Ever seen another keyswitch design where they thought they needed a contamination shield?
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It's a crazy switch design with a brilliant feel, John Robert Wolfram and Richard Hunter Harris really did one hell of a job for IBM. It would be very interesting to test a NIB Beamspring or at least one that has seen very little action to see how much wobble there is on the keycaps which jou will do for us at some point since he scored one that looked like it may be in very good overall shape.

Sorry for spamming your thread Tyr!

wiki/Beam_spring

Tyr

10 Jul 2016, 19:36

Nuum wrote: Nice! If I may ask, what did you use as rubber mat? Was it hard to disassemble all the switches or is there a trick?
I have the same task ahead of me, but I'll just leave the case away and hack something together from wood or something.
I used 2mm craft foam which is what I had readily available and that has done the trick. It's just the right thickness that it needs to compress slightly and keeps the switches stable. I think I saw someone used neoprene in another thread.

To disassemble the switches I pulled the metal stem with some pliers straight up. I tried a couple first as an experiment and when I was satisfied that it hadn't caused permanent damage did the rest. When pushing the metal stems back in it was pretty obvious when it hit the bumps internally that keep it in place. I've since pulled some keycaps and the switches are as sturdy as they were before. Even so, IBM never probably intended for people to do this so be careful always.
terrycherry wrote: Sorry for spamming your thread Tyr!
No worries, more information is always a good thing!

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seebart
Offtopicthority Instigator

10 Jul 2016, 19:48

I said I was sorry for spamming your thread, I'm sure terrycherry would never do that! Not that it really matters. I need to get some of that 2mm craft foam. The thing with some of my stems is the metal degraded over years. This is a weakpoint of the entire switch design and I'm pretty sure IBM did not plan on people using these keyboards 30-40 years later. Interesting that my 5251 has that same "Amsterdam" sticker.

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y11971alex

11 Jul 2016, 07:10

Is there any gossip why IBM stopped making beam springs? I know the wiki says Model F was cheaper, but by how much were Model F cheaper to make? Why stop at the Datamaster/23?

And also, if there are two switches under spacebar, wouldn't that mean the spacebar is 2x the weight of other keys?

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Ander

11 Jul 2016, 09:09

What a beautiful job! I aspire to having a beamspring one day—and when I do, I'll certainly be consulting pages like this one. Thanks.

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LewisR

11 Jul 2016, 09:42

y11971alex wrote: Is there any gossip why IBM stopped making beam springs?
I thought it had to do with their height, being that the industry was pushing for lower profile keyboard designs.

I like the pics in this thread, by the way. I want to save them for future reference. Thanks for sharing.

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Scottex

11 Jul 2016, 11:56

y11971alex wrote: And also, if there are two switches under spacebar, wouldn't that mean the spacebar is 2x the weight of other keys?
The spacebar keycap also weights more than normal keycaps, so maybe it's the same force than other switches

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seebart
Offtopicthority Instigator

11 Jul 2016, 16:33

y11971alex wrote: Is there any gossip why IBM stopped making beam springs? I know the wiki says Model F was cheaper, but by how much were Model F cheaper to make? Why stop at the Datamaster/23?
Technical progress, competition and new industry standards no one could ignore, not even the tech giant IBM. Sure it would be interesting to know exactly how much more a Beamspring vs. Model F vs. Model M cost in pure production, I have no idea but I'm pretty sure we might be suprised at those numbers.

daedalus posted this interesting video five years ago:
daedalus wrote: dw_junon from Geekhack acquired and uploaded this video (quite a crazy story about how he got his hands on it) of an IBM demonstration of some of their industrial robots. It so happens that from about a minute and a half in, the video shows how IBM used the robots to automate the manufacture of Model F keyboards in their Greenock plant in Scotland. It's very interesting to see how these things were assembled in the factory.
videos-f63/ibm-video-manufacture-of-mod ... ry%20video

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