deskthority

Hello, I'm from Thailand and I'm consider to be very new to the keyboard community. I first have IBM Model M about 6 months ago and I fell in love with it. I was getting deeper into vintage mech obsession and now I have a chance to lay my hand on an Model F AT and now it become my brand new favorite. However, apart from the unusual Ctrl button layout, I have a little problem on the really heavy spacebar. And I'm wondering if this stiff and heavy weight spacebar can be lighten.

Thanks in advance!

Hi Cdaman, welcome!

Yes, the F AT is a fantastic keyboard, and the spacebar can be lightened! It's due to the stabiliser which is below the plate. It can be bent to take some of the tension off. There's several tutorials on how to do this, though I don't have a link handy. Please do NOT try to pull of the spacebar as it is at the moment, because it's retained from the other side of the plate. Good luck!

Yes, there's a mod you can do, but it involves disassembling the keyboard:

workshop-f7/model-f-improvement-dis-ass ... t6982.html

What I personally do when I type on my model f is put a few small weights on the spacebar, which I find helps.

Have done the stabilizer mod in the past, and it works. Dismantling and reassembling the keyboard takes some time though.

You can also tape a few sinkers to the inside underside of the spacebar

I also did the spacebar mod on my (now gone) xt, totally worth it! just be careful not overdoing it, the elastic band will slip off and cause contact on the board.
I had to do tweak it several times to get it right, boy those Fs are a full time job : )