The Neo Ergo Is so pretty but I just can’t like it. Maybe one day I’ll sell it off or gift a friend.
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She does look handsome in blue. What are your biggest hang-ups with the board?
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With the board itself my only gripe is that it’s a little finicky putting on the top case so that it doesn’t ping–but even then some spots resonate when typing on it even with all the silicone.
Apart from that, it’s just the layout for me. I’m so used to typing on my wacky Minila style layout that the switch to the Ergo throws me off a bit. Just feels weird to me to have my hands so far apart and splayed in that “ergo” position. Typing speeds surprisingly aren’t actually affected, but… it just feels weird lol
Very pretty board, just not entirely my thing.
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Picked up a Null Design 60% some time ago.
It is beautiful and unlike some other wooden cases I’ve had this one is perfectly straight and not warped at all.
I picked up some random Cherry profile keycaps from Amazon and the dye sub work is amazing for $30. It’s incredible where the hobby has gone.
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Lovely pairing 
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AHHH it’s MW Voynich’s Evil Twin, also ouu nice simple wooden case very nice.
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Another wooden case recently rebuilt.
Retro60 from TheVan Keyboards.
Sadly this one has bowed with age and is almost unusable 
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Would you be able to show a picture of the bowing-ness of it. Im curious to see how extreme it is.
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It is hard to capture in a still photo but the middle keys bow upward and are slightly higher than the outer keys and the keyboard no longer lays flat and no arrangement of feet helps all that much.
This is the bane of wood boards. I suspect the zebra wood was not fully dried when it was CNC’ed like 6-7 years ago and has slowly dried and bowed since.
Here is a video of how much it moves when touched after I moved all the feet to minimize the wobble:
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As an eternally amateur woodworker, CNC’ing solid wood into tray-mount cases remains a pet peeve of mine. It’s a crap-shoot that ignores millennia of joinery knowledge. Heat stabilized, plywood, bamboo, basically anything “engineered” can all be fine, but single boards are not meant to be taken that thin and still used structurally. Most of them are probably fine for their useful lives, and even more past the point of warranty possibilities, but the failure rate is always going to be non-trivial compared to metal and plastic. Wood moves, even seasonally, and thin boards move more. That case may be fine in the winter, though, LOL.
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Ahh I see I see, thanks for sharing that video. I wonder how well my wooden board I made will hold up 5 more years from now, It has been almost 3 years now and last time I checked it is still seemingly good. Granted my board wasn’t CNC’ed out and it’s being held together with lots of wood glue and elbow grease, so I might be ok in that department.
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My zebra wood kbdfans case from waaay back when is unusable now. Luckily, my retro60 in walnut hasn’t changed at all in 8 years now.
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Do you see any utility in a board that is made from multiple pieces? would that solve the problem or just cause others. I have seen smaller pieces (like trays, etc) made with joints, etc. Aside from being extremely time consuming do you think something like that would solve the twisting and warping issues?
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How are your FNCTL boards? I assume all of that resin keeps them from warping?
My Wooden board is made from multiple pieces, one for the bottom and four for each side.
sweet! Have you posted it here before? Love to see it. Assume it is part of a set with your profile pic.
I own 3 of his boards. One has a decent bow in it. It also shrunk to the point that the backspace key rubbed the case. I sent it to him to have the inner section re routed. That’s fixed now but it still has a bow. The other two seem fine except the clear resin is yellow on the oldest one.
I own 4 Null boards and haven’t noticed them warping yet. Still early. Although I’ve had to reglue the metal accent pieces on two of them after they fell out.
My mid century riser from Norbauer is very thin yet perfectly flat. Again, too early to say for sure, but walnut seems to hold its shape fairly well.
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thanks. I only have one of his wrist-rests but I love the boards (the newer skateboard ones are so cool).
Sorry for the deluge of questions but do you have one of the Bakenekos? I think it would be very interesting on those if there is warping since the mount depens on friction fit.
Yes the one that is bowed and had to be reworked is the prototype for the bakeneko case.
From the perspective of traditional woodworking, multiple pieces is exactly how you would do it. Think in terms of something like picture frames. Wood moves more along its width than its length, by at least an order of magnitude. Cross members properly jointed will reduce the amount of width that any one board has and will guide what movement does happen. When a woodworking piece does require thin panels, they’ll often be floating inside a groove of some sort, or only partially glued and partially mechanically fastened, to allow for the movement to happen without blowing up the piece.
Now, at the high-end, careful selection of wood, careful selection of grain orientation on the selected board, and careful seasoning of the wood in the area where it’s likely to stay once it’s made into something can get you to a point where you are less likely to have issues. Then, while it’s no guarantee, a thicker piece (when compared to the other dimensions) will have sort of intrinsic strength to resist some movement. Given the care he shows in other things, I wouldn’t be surprised if some combination of those is why the Norbauer piece is holding up well.
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