Got it today! again, glad you posted. I had forgotten about the replacement.
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Got this in last week and then was going back and forth about building it myself or sending it to Alex to build on stream…
Geon Works F2-84
Specs
- Harbor Gray w/Brass weights
- FR4 half plate
- Hineybush H87nu PCB
- Staebies 2.1 Nylon/POM stabilizers
- Vintage, broken-in Cherry MX Blacks (c. 1987)
- JTK Error 404 dual-shot ABS keycaps
- RAMA WAVE Seq2 brass artisans in Moon and gold.
I’m glad I built it myself as the sense of accomplishment is completely on another level and making this one of the boards in my collection I am most proud of. 
The Build
I was also trying to figure out which switches I wanted to put in this board as I was going with a the FR4 half plate configuration. For all of the work that was going to go into this board, I opted to go with the switches that I spent the most time to prepare: Vintage Cherry MX Blacks that I had broken in for an additional 1 million actuations, applied RO-59 to the stems, and spray on dry lube to the bottom housings. The springs were lubed with GPL105, and Deskey films were applied to help out with the housing tolerances.
I then went to work to try to figure out which stabilizers I wanted to use, and for all of the different ones that I have tried, I keep coming back to Staebies. While the 7u wire needed a little help to straighten out, everything else was perfect. I lubed the housing with GS2 and the wires with GS3, which is a combo that I have really been enjoying as of late.
Moving on to soldering the switches to the board, which is usually a fairly simple task, the fact that these switches were only 3-pin had me second guessing my choice. I decided to soldier on and take things slow. Starting at the corners and then moving on to the space, enter, L & R shift, and backspace. I filled out the rest of the half plate and sat back to congregate myself and optimistically think about how it wasn’t that bad. Then, I tried to solder in the rest of the stand alone plateless switches…
I was able to use another plate to hold the tops of the switches in place until I could flip the PCB over. From there, I soldered in only one pin of each switch just to hold them to the PCB. After they were in place, I then took a 7u spacebar and laid it across the rows, and would reflow the solder on the one pin, and then solder down the second pin of the three switches that would connect to the spacebar. From there, I would move the spacebar over to the next switch and move down the line until all of the switches in that row were soldered in. It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough to me. 
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That’s why I always want to solder. It gives you such a great feeling about your build when you nail it. 
But regards to using another plate to straighten the switches, wouldn’t it work great if you pile up the plate and just let your build rest in it like a tray before you solder?
Oh!
And @Deadeye , great write up, really got me into the mo()de.
And after reading @d3L7r0n write up, I’m definitely gonna do some tinkering with my keebs this week. 
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Full spa treatment right there. Noice.
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:
Saw the bitt101 on a Twitch stream (juliday97) a little while ago. Just stuck out to me as a delightful board - luckily - in-stock! Delivered this week - and put together this evening. The KAT Monochrome that is on there feels a little…tall - will likely swap the caps out - but it’s a fun board.
The top row of LED buttons flips between screen options, as well as, disabling the screen / LEDs - an action bar - and the second row acts as the F row.
I wasn’t sure on the sound, since the body is just bent, powder-coated steel, but with the plate and mute foam - it’s really quite pleasant.
Built with Gateron Oil Kings.
Lighting on the photo is meh - it’s a nice white - powder coat. Only a few specks which give it character 
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That’s an awesome looking board. I love that thing!
Cloudline TKL by JJW x Shannie
Infill is a must with engravings:
An absolutely top-tier board. Chef’s kiss emoji.
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That infill looks super nice. Did you do it yourself with some enamel paint?
I second this. @JucheCatgirl do you have a guide you used or can you make one yourself. I have a few boards I’ve always wanted to infill but I’ve been too afraid to
Yep! I used a water-based acrylic paint, specifically this ‘Brainmatter Beige’ that I found at a hobby shop, it’s a very close match for GMK L9 to my eyes and water-based acrylic is a bit easier to safely remove.
I use a 000 brush for infill, you can be a bit sloppy with application at first and then wipe off the excess with non-acetone nail polish remover or rubbing alcohol on cotton squares or q tips. You can rub the q-tip right across the engraving and it’ll clean off the excess paint without removing the paint in the engraving.
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Can I ask your thoughts or advice on infilling the engraving? I am about to do the same.
My research seems to suggest:
- Acrylic water-based paint.
- Slap it on.
- Gently scrap off the access with a plastic credit card, leaving only the infill behind.
Was that your experience as well?
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Infill following @JucheCatgirl’s instructions! I tried the scrap off method first, but I think it does look cleaner with the non-acetone based nail polish remover method. I ended up finishing with that. Took few coats.
If I zoom in, I can find some little bits I wish were better, but from arm-length away height, I think looks great. It is a lovely detail and I will definitely have to look for more boards with a feature like this in the future.
Kind of tempted to try and find a Cloudline now too 
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Very nice, thanks for sharing! 
I love a good infill, it’s such a simple modification and it adds so much character.
I’ve infilled one other board, the Freyr TKL by the exit scammers at CherryB Studio:
(I tried adding a pic of the full board but it wouldn’t upload correctly - just imagine a grey TKL with SGI beige keycaps 
)
I have a third TKL with a nav cluster engraving (CherryB Neo87) that I haven’t filled yet, but only because I’ve been too lazy to buy more paint - I just have the beige that I had purchased specifically for infilling the Freyr 
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I’ve been using my Pegasus again after a short break. Built with lubed KTT Sea Salt Lemons, Durock stabs and GMK Shoko.
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Lovely. And lovely photography
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Ok, as promised, here are pics of my Green and Copper Mode Envoy. All pics are from my iPhone and I will be the first to admit I am know almost NOTHING about lighting or framing shots… 
Specs
- Green Aluminum Case
- Copper weight
- Walnut accent
- Copper plate
- Solder PCB
- Gateron Baby Kangaroo switches
- Gazzew Boba U4T (62g) under the spacebar
- Owlstabs (Loctite dielectric grease on wires, GS2 on housing)
- GMK Nines keycaps
- Kono aluminum Nines Artisan
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This is fantastic!
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