Guilty Keyboard Secret

It’s easy to show off your Canoe, Zephyr, Duck, Fjell, e6, etc. Pretty much everyone agrees that it’s an awesome board.

I want to know what boards you have or plan to build that you absolutely love to use or desire to create that would make most people go “meh…”

I’ll start us off. I’m planning a build with the $15 plastic case on KBDFans, a hot swappable PCB, carbon fiber plate, and some Halo True housing swap variant. Looking to create a super light board just to see how that feels.

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I wouldn’t call them guilty secrets, but I do get where you are coming from with this post. I’ll bite & show 3 of my boards that could fall under this description. First off my ALPS64 build,


It’s got SKCM orange switches, the plate is cutout from an original AEKII plate, the case is a KBDfans Lambo clone, & the caps are just regular AEKII caps. Nothing special to look at, but boy does she type! In fact this has quickly become my go to board for any extended typing sessions & my DD for the most part (except gaming).

The second board I would put in here is my Leopold FC660M,


I swapped out the Cherry blacks it originally came with for spring swapped & lubed MOD Ls (swapped to 80g gold plated springs & lubed with my personal Krytox thick mix). Then I put a set of ePBT orange & black Cyrillic caps with some artisans on it to spice up it’s looks. I plan on eventually finding a aluminium case for it, but as it stands it’s still in it’s original plastic case. This one has a little more pop to it visually thanks to the caps & artisans, but could be easily mistaken for an off the shelf 660M just by looks. Thanks to the switch swap though it is a joy to type on & my go to gaming board.

Then for the third board I’ll show you my Let’s Split,


It’s got spring swapped & lubed Cherry clears (same springs & lube as the MOD Ls in my 660M), a cheap acrylic sandwich case, & some cheap PBT DSA caps from KBDfans. Again nothing really special to look at, but it has a great feel to it. The acrylic case & rubber feet I used with it makes for a really soft typing experience that is pretty unique IMO.

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All my favorite keyboards to type on are 3D printed… despite having several nice keyboards with hefty aluminum cases.

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i’m not saying i’ll never own some crazy exclusive everything is aluminium-and/or-bronze kb, but right now i kinda don’t see the point. the history of computing is in mass production and accessibility, and building something unique and yours out of parts just about any one has access to. that’s what i want to type on.

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i dont have a build planned but im generally in the minority in preferring the sound switches make in plastic or acrylic as opposed to aluminum. i got an acrylic case for my alps build instead of aluminum for that reason

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Echo that. One of my absolute favorite sounding boards is a filco majestouch 2 with silent reds. The plastic case makes it sound pretty amazing with those switches.

My guilty keyboard secret?

I use a Lenovo OEM Rubber Dome Keyboard at work!
I kinda have to though -_-

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I feel you on that, but I also feel like the pope just told me he wasn’t Catholic. Not by his own choice though. But by some conspiracy that the world would literally end if he decided to be so.

I miss my old Microsoft Natural Keyboard. Right now I really really like typing on my Pixelbook, best laptop keyboard I’ve ever typed on.

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HUEY WHAT??

is this allowed

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That sucks so bad! I don’t know if I could continue this obsession if I couldn’t use anything I wanted at work where I’m constantly typing. Let’s be honest, my wife wouldn’t let me have more than one keeb to just surf the interwebs and play games, lol.

i dont disagree, but one thing that i recently learned from one of chyros’ videos is that vintage keyboards often did cost the equivalent of around $300/400 in today’s money when they came out originally. Early personal computers were very expensive to build so all the parts were built to last as long as possible, which is why old model ms are built like tanks. today, bc hardware is expected to be obsolete in a few years and is cheaper overall to produce, certain parts–like peripherals–are not as well-built bc nobody expects to pay that much for them anymore.

I thought it was interesting and kind of put custom keyboards into perspective for me.

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i’d never actually thought of it like that! i guess i was more focused on the ''bespoke" angle, not the quality of manufacturing angle. thank you- that’s a much better perspective!

Yeah, my price point is around $600.00, which was what a Model F cost adjusted for inflation. IBM's Model F Keyboard From The 1980s Is Coming Back : All Tech Considered : NPR

It kind of puts our hobby into perspective. Maybe it’s a rationalization. Either way, that’s my view. You can get a lot for that kind of money. Whether it’s better or not is a subject for discussion. There’s always the Model F project.

One of my guilty secrets is my AEK keycaps are pretty dirty… this picture shows it well.

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My alphas are pretty nice on my Hasu64 build, but I desperately need a newer, less yellowed AEK space bar & a new R shift since I accidentally touched it with my soldering iron. So I’ll lump myself in with this dirty secret!

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mine are too and i dont want to take them off to clean them bc my alps stabilizers are a pain in the ass

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If it wasn’t for the DIY and customization aspect, I wouldn’t be in this hobby at all.

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I own a Duck Eagle but use my KBD75 95% of the time at the moment.

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Amen to that! I went the same route & used all authentic ALPS stabs for mine as well. Definitely a pain in the ass to take them stabilized keys off, especially the space bar cause I used the plunger with it.