The G80-1800 Restoration Process - KeebTalk

(Long posting inside)

Decided to create this topic exactly due to the fact I’m not the most knowledgeable guy on restauration. Due to the COVID lockdown measures and the less-fortunate continuity of my professional career, I decided to spend my time with something which would actually keep me involved on something productive.

Keeping it short, I got my hands onto a batch of G80-1851’s, black and white, having production years ranging from 1999 to 2006. Since I am not that used to ISO layouts, I would want to fit these keyboards with some pcb which would allow me to have an ANSI layout and eventually QMK (which isn’t that much of a requirement but hey…)

So, workplan is to restore these 2 white (well, not that white) top cases, considering that the bottom cases are surprisingly clean. Only downside was that out of all the 1800’s I got my hands on, all of them had the Lauer-Fischer logo scratched, while my black boards, have it untouched (visible on the 3rd photo).

IMG_32302048×1536 393 KB 1 - This is the oldest board out of all 4 I have with me. Unsurprisingly, the top left logo removal operation seemed to have been done on a dificult day. Besides that scratching (or carving?) the color isn’t that bad, when compared to this one:

IMG_32292048×1536 345 KB 2- You can see that the logo removal operation was done on a way more zen mode, yet, board seems way darker when compared with the previous.

With this one, I tried some cleaning sinking it on warm water and denture tablets for about 5 hours, took it out, cleaned, and didn’t notice any change on tone.

IMG_32311983×889 352 KB 3- Regarding keycaps, same method as before was used, I considered the end result quite good as it can be seen before on a black 1800.

I recognise I might have screwed up on any step, so my idea with this post would be to not only share the restoration log but also to get tips/ideas from users which might’ve had better restoration experiences to share.

L.