[Jukebox-list] Original Keys

[Bob E.]

At 02:47 PM 9/4/06 -0500, you wrote:
>Hello Everyone,
>
>I was wondering if anyone had any good tips for cleaning and restoring 
>original letter/number keys back to their clean and white state.  The 
>original ones I have are dulled and yellowed, and the repros that I 
>purchased just don't fit or feel as nice.  I would like to clean up and use 
>the real thing if possible.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

A fellow wrote into Always Jukin' a while back about his procedure for
cleaning and polishing wallbox buttons, I will have to look and see if
I can find it.  It may not work for the DS keys, since they have a "bend"
in the middle, but for the flat fronts of the wallbox keys (double-shot
molding with white plastic surrounding a translucent letter or number)
you basically put 600 (maybe even finer, like 800 or so) wet-or-dry sand
paper down on a very flat surface and carefully wet-sand them -- hold the
keys in your fingers and rub the face carefully on that (without rocking
them side to side).  You don't want to round off the keys, you want the
fronts to remain flat.  After getting down to new, white material, he used
rubbing compound and plastic polish (like Novus) to gradually bring up
a smooth shine.  He said you had to push down really hard, and it was
fatiguing to the fingers!  I think he said that the result was very nice,
and that there were no magic cleaners or bleaches that would give the 
same result.  Still, you may want to look around for a spare set of DS
keys on eBay (they're the unusual blue ones!) just in case you find a 
wrong solution!

--Bob

=======================================================================
Bob Ellingson					bobe at halted.com
Halted Specialties Co., Inc.			http://www.halted.com
3500 Ryder St.					(408) 732-1573
Santa Clara, Calif. 95051  USA			(408) 732-6428 (FAX)