75% Sprit, MX Clears, custom wooden case

[Hermith]

Just a quick worklog:

"Specs":
MX Clears, except Esc and Enter which are MX Green, and right alt that's MX White because I suck at counting.
Sprit's 75% layout from the geekhack groupbuy.
Mahogany wooden case.

Pictures:

Popping in the switches. I decided on PCB mount due to the costs.


Testing the layout. I'd like to have the keycaps as "set-friendly" as possible, but I ended up with the unorthodox 1.75u right shift because I wanted the arrow-cluster.


Soldering. This went quickerthan expected, helps to have a friend that has access to a proper iron (heats up from 200 to 400C in less than two seconds).


First two rows soldered.


Soldering complete.


Checking the angle on the bottom plate of the case. Think this might be birch. My dad the carpenter helped me with this part.


Glued on the 4 edges, these are the parts that will show and are in mahogany that we found some leftover stubs of.


After the edge has been cut to the same angle as the bottom plate + some sanding.


All riser screws in place. These are just normal motherboard riser screws.


Zomg! It lines up!


Sorry for the blur. It feels a bit high, so a few mm is gonna be sanded of the bottom.


The finish after two strokes of lacquer.


Still feels a bit high. But I'll know after a couple of weeks of use if it's too high.


The edge to cap distance seems very good.


Done! Kinda. Still lacks stabilizers in this picture, but that doesn't show.



Bonus-picture! With Nuka Cola spacebar that I won from Ducky Nordic over at his marketplace thread.

A few months later picture, now with the 1976 key caps:

[scottc]

Excellent. Could you share more info about the case?

[pyrelink]

Very nice work on the case, as I mentioned on the Reddit post.

From what I can tell and what you mentioned on the other post, its Mahogany siding, with a Birch base, glued together. You mounted the motherboard standoffs into the case and marked the positions for them with a dowel and the original PCB. Looks very nice. I think with a nice coating of Lacquer and a few days of curing, will leave it looking just dazzling.

If you hurry, you might be able to scrounge up a ghetto Round 5 set from the left overs

[scottc]

Thanks for the info, pyrelink!

I cobbled together a somewhat usable Round 5 set from leftovers. It might fit this board, but it was about €50+ and not the nicest-looking collection of caps I've seen in my life.

[Grond]

The case looks a bit tall for my taste, but it's certainly well made! Nice job!

[pyrelink]

I cobbled together a somewhat usable Round 5 set from leftovers. It might fit this board, but it was about €50+ and not the nicest-looking collection of caps I've seen in my life.

I know what you mean. I procrastinated and procrastinated on the set for months and months, and by the time I was fully convinced, everything was in leftover mode

[Hermith]

pyrelink summed it up pretty nicely.

The case looks a bit tall for my taste, but it's certainly well made! Nice job!

Indeed. I'm going to take a few mm off the bottom before doing the first stroke. More pictures will come up sometime tomorrow.

[Laser]

Very nice!
Some day i'll make myself one ... the keyboard case in my dreams has a wooden wrist pad built in, continuing the front wall.

[Hermith]

Added a photo with how the finish turned out. Looks nice so far!

[Findecanor]

That looks so good! I want to make one now.

[Hermith]

It's not really that advanced. 95% of the job is having access to the right tools. Having a dad that's a carpenter doesn't really hurt either.

[Hermith]

Added a last picture with full keycap set! Still waiting for stabs but I can take pictures without them. Wood on wood is slippery though, so I should try and find some rubber pads.

[Grond]

I think the dark brown Filco sphericals would be the perfect match for that keyboard! Or a brownfox set maybe.

[Hermith]

Added a bonus-picture.

[beltet]

Nicely done! Looks real good. But what model is the soldering iron. May be interested in one my self.

Soldering. This went quickerthan expected, helps to have a friend that has access to a proper iron (heats up from 200 to 400C in less than two seconds).

[JohnVenture]

I'm still waiting on my round 1 75% black pcb from sprit...Out of curiosity, when did you order?

[Hermith]

Originally for round one, but had to cancel because of lack of money. Reordered a year later (round 2). De offered me one of the left overs from round 1 as I had a very simple order.

Did you order any extra assembly for yours?

[Fred]

Nice! Essentially the same layout as on my laptop, which is probably my favorite layout. Great job!

[Hermith]

Not sure if I'm just imagining it or if it's because of the clears but it does feel a bit deeper. But I also bottom out less on clears than on browns so it might just be that.

[JohnVenture]

Originally for round one, but had to cancel because of lack of money. Reordered a year later (round 2). De offered me one of the left overs from round 1 as I had a very simple order.

Did you order any extra assembly for yours?

I had a black 75% PCB round 1 order with some switches and gold springs, no assembly. It will be a year in a couple weeks and the guy has gone A-wall after showing me a pic of the pcb being 'almost ready to ship' in late december.
Did the resistors came in soldered or did you do it yourself?

I was planning on doing a wood case as well but I'm not committing any time to it until I receive the pcb - if I ever do. How does the height of yours feel after a few weeks usage?

[Hermith]

Resistors came separate on mine. Now I'm thinking I should feel lucky that I got mine. But I guess that's the risk of doing GBs, you can't be in a hurry. I'm just glad I was able to make a 75% ISO board, as these are literally non-existent.

The height is OK. It's higher than a Poker, but it feel perfectly comfortable to use for long sessions.

It's worth noting that it could be lower. I'm using normal motherboard standoff which add a bit to the height, and the bottom could probably be a bit thinner as well.

[JohnVenture]

You should feel lucky indeed, plenty of other peeps are missing their stuff on geekhack. Also I do believe it's my pcb you're using

[Hermith]

He did specifically reach out to me because he said he had extras, so if I didn't need any assembly I could have it right away. But yeah, I haven't followed it much after that but it seems he crumbled under the huge amount of assembly work he had to do, and just everything fell apart?

[JohnVenture]

No one knows really what happened, some speculate he was overwhelmed by the amound of work relative to soldering all the transistors of round 1 PCBs - but some people who offered to solder them themselves didn't get their stuff regardless. Co-founder of a major Korean board confirmed Sprit is missing there too, just vanished into thin air.
It just seem very random that some people ordered 2 months ago and got their stuff right away, whereas some had orders over a year in the waiting and are still empty-handed. Plenty of incidents like this on geekhack. Has he wanted to run an elaborate scam he wouldn't have done any different. Still a part of me want to believe he isn't a crook, but I guess that's what all Madoff's victims thought too

[Hermith]

Some new pictures now that I've gotten the 1976 caps, one of the more fitting set with this wooden case:









And now with proper F-row!

[seebart]

the color scheme really works well with the wood! Nice.

[rodtang]

Well, I'll be darned. A (almost) Norwegian layout 75% keyboard in a mahogany case. Someone actually beat me to it. Nice work!

[Hermith]

What's almost about it?

[DanielT]

This looks damn good!

[Eszett]

How did you get the bottom plate perfectly aslope, plus, in the right angle? Which angle is it?