the backstage :^)

i still want to try making new pens from scratch later because i want ones in the other colors the ballpoint set i bought came in (like purple and pink), but for now i'm content enough in refilling the ones i have right now

also, just so it's noted i _did_ ruin three pens so far: one of them i didn't notice the ballpoint had vanished, one of them basically crumbled when i tried to take it apart, and the other one i tried a method of getting the ballpoint unstuck and it just dropped into the pen body

the ballpoints in these pens are VERY fine and the tip holding them is plastic, so they're very easy to break. the black pen i have right now is using the tip from one of the gray extra pens (supposedly "correctable" pens, but mine had weird greenish and reddish inks in them)

so after more work yesterday and more frustratingly broken pens, it doesn't look too good for restoring the original pens. i still have black and blue working ok, green sputters but looks like the ballpoint is not getting enough ink, and i have no working tips left to make a red

so the next step is to try and focus more on sourcing new pens through whatever process. there's a place you can still buy them in the US but i'm not in the US and that makes it prohibitive, unless someone wants to donate me some pens for cost of shipping

i won't have much time to work on it today, so maybe this weekend i'll take a look at the gears. those i can get from eBay for a more reasonable price than the pens (because the pens are only sold domestically), but first i'll see if i can do anything to them without replacements

golly!

d'you know what? i'm not immediately seeing any split gears, believe it or not

i think they might be grinding for another reason, like the carriage movement resisting too much

i WAS going to try to clean the keyboard from the inside to solve stubborn keys, but check out how thick this metal plate is! nothing i have is strong enough to bend them straight to open it

if i had to guess, they are probably linear spring switches (no tactile feel or click)

this corner isn't so happy

those rubber domes are for the index up and down keys, thankfully they're working fine

i can try to clean up a bit from here but without access to inside the keyboard there's not much i can do about the rust

oh, the switches come off! accidentally pulled one along with a stubborn keycap, turns out they're held in place by plastic clips holding onto the metal plate

i was right about them being linear spring switches!

the switches are pretty easy to take off by paw once you know where the tabs are

unfortunately (fortunately?) this reveals a lot more rust

almost but not quite all clear. can't figure out how to remove from here the switch for the left shift, which has the retainers for the stabilizer bar, the retainers for the space stabilizers, and the caps lock LED. but this already gives me plenty of surface to clean

it took all my strength but i managed to straighten the tabs & free the metal plates! and just in time as well, the rust was starting to get to the membrane, but thankfully nothing had been damaged yet

i got really lucky with this machine, it's in really serviceable condition!

don't have a commercial rust remover readily available so i whipped up a quick baking soda water paste and applied it liberally to both sides of the top plate. seems like most of the surface rust already brushed away anyway

bottom plate is rust-free thankfully

key plate looks almost entirely rust free after scrubbing baking soda off! switches were scrubbed with alcohol to get rid of rust, membrane wiped down as well. the keycaps already looked like they'd never been used but figured i wouldn't do half measures and washed them in soap

the plate still looks kinda bad in a couple of places on camera but it's a far cry from all that orange surface rust. maybe a better treatment in the future is warranted, but this is what i can offer it right now