Hi Rob,
The hack is doing well on both of my machines. And since I do not use "stencil"...leaving that out of the hack was a non-issue. It allowed for the extension lever to have a shorter trave-distance as well.
I drilled one ribbon color selector lever in-place on the machine...which was a bit of a pain. On the 2nd. machine, I removed that mechanism so I could place it in my small bench vise and drill it there. One screw, a spring, and the selector mechanism came out. Take a photo of it before you remove it so it is easier to put back into place.
IIRC...I had to file the top of the rectangular cut-out a bit on both machines...to accommodate the thickness of the donor lever so it would not put too much pressure on the "Magic Column Set" push button. That button was, initially, not returning to its rest position when pushed. A jeweler's file took care of that.
Color-dots I got at Wal-Mart in their Crafts & Sewing section.
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