Keyboard Woodworking — Part 1 — The reason
I learned about building mechanical keyboard during Covid. After 2 years, I’ve settled to a specific design made a few copies of such design. For my own set, I wanted a wood case to house the custom keyboard.
And that’s where my woodworking starts.
I had done a few simple small projects with woodworking using machine and took a few woodworking courses including small chair making and pen turning.
for this one, I had to think through many thing. The keyboard without case looks like this:
The PCB is under the black foam which will be 9mm from the top, then the plastic itself is 3mm. So to fit into a case, it will have tiered recess where the center rectangle is deeper, then outer parameter where plastic resides will be shallower.
First, I bought a wood sample pack from Bell Forest to understand and see the wood. It was useful as each piece comes with a print of their properties and some info. I added market rate per board foot.
Second, I went to specialty lumber yard to select wood. I enjoy browsing this store because of wide selections and eventually settled on a well textured olive wood. Not so smart of a choice as we found out later.
After I got the wood, I need to flatten it, square it, and cut it into dimension. Here’s is where I face a big decision, powered tools or hand tools?
Powered Tools or Hand Tools?
I’ve taken a few woodworking courses that uses jigs and powered tools that can quickly give students something to bring home after a week or two. Everything is setup by instructor and jigs have been made. At the end, I felt I didn’t know much other than turning on the machine, make the cut or trim, then drill a few holes and voila, a small bench.
I wanted to be more in-depth. I want to know how to design, how to measure, how to decide. And powered tools are expensive, loud, heavy, and sometimes dangerous if used incorrectly. And because I’m working off a porch, machines doesn’t fit well in the space.
So hand tools it is.
Then after some research, comes the next question, Western or Japanese/Chinese style of hand tools?
Western or Japanese
After lots of youtube watching(Paul Sellers, Wood By Wright, and Rex Krueger for western style, The Carpentry Life, Shoyan Japanese Carpenter for Japanese style), article reading, and contemplation. Somehow, I bumped into Stanley Covington’s blog who has, I think, the most comprehensive content on many of Japanese tools. For example, just on chisel alone, he wrote an 18-parts series on various types of chisels. Another 30-parts on sharpening, yes, sharpening.
I was hooked. He is strongly opinionated and humorous, but I think he backs them up with credential, research and results. Here’s a snippet from his firsts article on sharpening:
Unlike most of what is available on the internet, these techniques are not based on irresponsible rumors expounded as fact in smelly, troll-infested forums, articles in magazines written by self-educated journalists, or silly videos on NoobTube.
I didn’t invent the techniques described herein, but they are nonetheless my techniques, the results of hard experience working with, and lessons learned from, professional craftsmen in Japan over a period of some 30 years, sometimes working as a professional woodworker, and other times working as an employee of two of Japan’s largest “super” general contractors.
So, I started to lean toward Japanese tools. Stan mentioned about his dissatisfaction with some of the current expensive chisels and he went on to find 1–2 solo blacksmiths that he trusts to make chisel and he sells them.
You might think that his blog is meant for marketing the tools he sell. But seeing the amount of the contents and knowledge he pours into the blog, I don’t think it’s meant for marketing. Not its original purpose anyway. After weeks on his blog, I decided to order a set of chisels from him and see those chisel first hand if they are as good as he described.
And in addition to order from Stan who’s from Japan, I also made an pretty big order to another Japanese tool shop for other tools such as saws, hammer, rules, squares, sharpening stones and a plane.
To be continue.
