This week or next. The polycarbonate ones also just came in, so we’ve got a bit of a backlog. Now that we’re doing everything ourselves, shipping is much slower but it gives us much more confidence in quality control, so I think it’s worth the trade off.
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Hi There,
First timer here. I recently ordered a MK II and an RF 87U via the amazon link on the norbauer webpage. I thought what I was receiving was a SE18TO (as described in the product description) but instead received a SE170S and did not particularly want silenced Topre switches. Before sending back, I thought I’d ask - is it possible to remove the silencing sliders on the switches to convert back to a standard topre switch? Any thoughts or advice are much appreciated and apologies if this comment is in the wrong thread.
Thank you!
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You absolutely can, it’s a bit tedious if you’ve never worked around Topre stuff but the sliders pop out pretty easily once disassembled and the silencing rings slide right off. However, the silenced model comes with purple sliders vs the standard black ones and are slightly longer to account for the silencing rings, so removing them will often have the side effect of your keycaps sitting higher and can also affect acoustics/sound (so i’ve heard). I’ve never personally tried this myself so i’ll let anyone else who has chime in.
Personally, i’d give the silencing a try as silenced Topre grew on me and in my opinion sounds really good in Norbauer housings, but if you choose not to want silencing returning for one without purple sliders probably makes sense. I’m not sure what you paid for an 87u from Amazon but the R2 boards direct from Fujitsu are also a great option 
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Thanks for the quick reply. Very helpful comment - I’m currently scouring the geekhack page on topre sliders and silencing research to see what I can find. Thinking I might hold on to the silenced board as it looks like there is no stock left online selling for under $600 anyways (I got mine for $385 - so feel like I got a good deal)… We’ll see, excited for the MK II to come next!
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For sure! Definitely makes sense to get it and at least try it out. But yeah for alternatives you can find a R2 Realforce for quite a bit less than that which will also fit in the housing. I have a couple 87u’s and a couple R2 boards and they’re both really nice, with the R2 having some nice creature comforts like media controls and a more standard ANSI layout
Has anybody tried to burger mount the Norbaforce with 2 o rings? Since they’re practically top mounted now. I was wondering whether that would add a little bit of softness to the bottoming out.
So far I’ve managed to put niz housings and sliders on my R2 PFU and they sound pretty good imo. Used costar stabs for the spacebar. So now I can use MX keycaps on the norbaforce which is a dream.
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Is that a VHS or Aperture finish ?
It is vhs
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Damn.
I ordered the Aperture finish but after seeing your post I kind of want the VHS instead.
Lets hope @norbauer doesn’t hate me for making his life a little harder >.<
how much did it cost you to order niz housings and sliders? i also commented on your build on the unreal discord i think.
Hey this is the one I got
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Hey Ryan, love your work. I’m quite keen to eventually buy a Norbaforce and I know you currently have some in stock, but I’m not quite sure now is the right time for me. Is the plan to have continuous restocks / production runs of the Norbaforce or might now be my only opportunity?
Sorry if you’ve already answered this!
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I do try my best to keep up with demand, but I’m somewhat of the mercy of factory capacity and lead times along with cashflow constraints, so availability is inevitably somewhat random—for better or worse. We currently only have less than 20% of this batch left in stock and I don’t have any more on order other than the polycarb edition. I’ll probably eventually do another batch of the aluminum ones, but likely not until sometime later next year. I hope this helps a bit. Thanks for your interest in my stuff! 
Not sure where to ask it, so I’ll just ask here. Do you have any upcoming projects that we don’t know about? 
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Oh boy do I.
I realize this is an unfairly coy tease, but it’s a huge project I’ve been working on for years. I hope to be able to provide more details by end of the year.
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Thanks for the information, Ryan. Knowing there will at least likely be another run next year makes me feel a little better.
Looking forward to your future projects! Cheers
I just got off the phone with the people. They need Norbauer-designed housings for their Realforce numpads. They went on about creating the ultimate pairing or something like that…
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My sticking point on the numpad is that I’m not sure what finishes to offer. I’ve made so many different finishes for the Norbaforce that there is no way I could possibly make numpad housings to match all of them. I expect this to be a pretty niche small-run thing, so I actually think I could only probably do about two finishes. What should they be? By going back the same shop that did the Mark Is, I could probably do Aerospace and Tactical anodized. And/or two neutral textured powder coats like black (Enigma) and white (K2).
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Could go into a super niche direction and do veracity for all of them, but that would likely alienate some of what is already a small population based on price alone.
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