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Hi all, since I'm starting a little collection of vintage toy/cheapo keyboards, I recently bought an old SA-21 (from the 1990s) as 'new-in-box' item on *bay. Of course, it is anything but new. Though it is unscratched, as far as I could see, it is clearly used (used batteries from a different retail store chain inside). The (private) seller won't take it back, and I'm not sure it would be worth the return postage anyway. Two things are really annoying: 1) The batteries are rattling when I move the keyboard. 2) All the keys are heavily (and evenly) yellowed. Two related questions before I get to the subject matter: Is the batteries rattling phenomenon a known issue? They don't rattle sideways, but the battery compartment seems to be too wide in diameter. I would have expected there to be at least some kind of padding that prevents them from rattling. In the same vein, is key yellowing a known issue? I would expect a keyboard sitting in its box not do develop that problem, disregarding the duration of storage. Now, having come across the idea of 'retrobrighting' old plastic housings, I was thinking of trying to apply that to the yellowed keys. For those who might not know, 'retrobrighting' is basically bathing (or otherwise covering) plastics in Hydrogen Peroxide (plus some additives) and leaving it in the sunlight or under UV light for a day or so. This should be able to reverse the yellowing. There are numerous YT videos about it and there used to be a wiki on http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com, no idea where it went, but pages (up to ca. 2012-14, oder ones work better) still accessible on archive.org. I have seen several examples of successful retrobrighting of computer gear, but I have never seen it applied to keyboard keys. However, I'm not sure this process is suitable for the kind of plastics the keys are made of, and whether the phenomenon in the keys is caused by the same flame retardants and Bromine in the first place. Anyone ever tried 'retrobrighting' vintage keyboard keys? Any successes or failures? Any other thoughts? TIA
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- restoration
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