[sdiy] surface of keyboards

[Tim Ressel]

JH,

A light sanding with wet-or-dry sandpaper, 600 grit or
finer if you can find it, will roughen the surface. Be
sure to vacuum all the dust, and clean with a damp
cloth.

Be warned, however, that repeated rubbing with fingers
(as is expected with keyboards) will polish the
plastic and make it shiny. We had this problem with
the plastic cases of our products, which were
textured. After a while shiny spots would show from
all the use it got.

True story: a famous mime, whose name I cannot spell,
would coat the stage with Coke to make it sticky and
give him traction. No other product had the right
tack; it had to be Coke.

So maybe accidentally spilling a Coke on your keyboard
would help. Just remember: spilling a beer on it will
cancel the effect.

-TR

--- jhaible at debitel.net wrote:
> Something completely different, but - hopefully! -
> DIY related:
> 
> So now I have this Technics WSA synthesizer, and I
> like it's "partly physical
> modelling" sound engine.
> But I'm not so happy with its  keyboard.  
> 
> It's one of the *better* keyboard actions (slightly
> weighted), but my fingers
> are aching after some time of playing. At first I
> had no idea where this would
> come from. I measured the key travel, the length of
> keys, the force that's needed
> to depress a key, the farce that's needed to hold
> down a key, and all was well
> within the range of my other keyboards in the
> studio.
> 
> Then I noticed that the *surface* of the keys,
> especially the white keys, was
> much "smoother" or "more glossy" than my other
> keyboards'. I thought this
> should be an advantage, not a drawback, shouldn't it
> ? 
> 
> But apparently this *is* the parameter that causes
> my finger problems.
> Finger sliding too much across the surface with
> every keystroke ?
> Something like that. I'm alsmost sure this is the
> problem.
> 
> 3 Questions:
> 
> (1) Has anybody heard of this phänomenon before? Any
> references about
>      a key being "too smooth" ?
> 
> (2) Does anybody know what polymers are typically
> used for keyboards ?
> 
> (3) Is there a way to roughen up such a surface? (I
> have tried a solvent
>      for removing price tags from goods, which
> normally roughens up the
>      surface of CD Jewel boxes, but it doesn't work
> on the WSA keys - seems
>      the polymer they used is "too good".
> 
> Any ideas ?
> 
> JH. (yes, I'm serious.)


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