Here’s an old video and IG post I made on the board, and in case anyone is wondering about the “HHKB-ness”. That came much later when I got around to making proper HHKB blockers. I just didn’t have time for it during the initial project.
Is it… pine? Maybe poplar or ash, I guess. It came out great in any event.
Movement of the bottom is constrained by being glued to the pretty beefy frame, which simply isn’t likely to move much because there’s very little width for that thickness. I guess the bottom might split someday, but if that were going to happen in normal conditions, it probably would have already. I maybe wouldn’t store it in an attic or garage though, LOL. It also looks like you were sensible about your clearances. The roundover routing also looks good. Well done!
I’m not 110% sure what wood was used because I literally picked up a couple random pieces of scrap wood that was in the scrap pile of the workshop I was doing the project in. But based on the look of the wood and what the dude who runs the workshop said, it’s most likely poplar. The bottom piece is the only different piece of wood and it was just some (kinda dirty and heavily painted on) piece of plywood I found and thought would work well for the bottom base.
Yea I definitely don’t store it in any moist/extreme conditions so luckily should be safe for years to come. Oh man LOL don’t even get me started on clearances, that was the hardest part of the project. Especially because I was using bakeneko internals aka I had to implement an o-ring mount which means the inner “tray” can’t be too loose or too tight cuz the friction fit has to be justttt right. I basically treated getting all the clearances/measurements right with a “one shot, one opportunity” mindset and through sheer luck I got most stuff right on the 1st try. I am still VERY VERY happy with how well it turned out mainly cuz it was my first ever serious woodworking project and I spent a good amount of hours on it.
Appreciate the compliments and if it wasn’t obvious I took heavy inspiration from the Piggy60 and other THICK side bezel boards
It will forever be my baby and no harm shall come to it.
That’s actually going to be a good thing. Plywood is made by laying veneers at 90-degree angles and then using glue and pressure to hold it together, so it’s already mostly immune to all the wood movement stuff we’ve been talking about. I think your chances of avoiding warping are really, really good.
Ohhh true that makes sense and is even more reassuring lolol.
Whoa
, I had no idea it grain affected it’s warping like that – I knew wood expanded with moisture and contracts with dryness, but hadn’t really thought about by how much and where it would take place. Thanks for teaching me something cool today!
Living in the American Southeast, I can attest to moisture Doing Things to wood. Seems like every house I visit has that one door that doesn’t shut right in summer, but is fine during winter.


Been using this daily and I’m really loving how subtle it looks in low light. I guess I’m only now really getting the Derivative hype.
What keycap set is on that?
I wonder what other 40%'s with a numpad exist.
Milk Truck and Kastenwagen are what I instantly have in mind (probably because I got both
). Otherwise there’s also the Qazpad, Quazipad and the ChonkyKong. Probably even more, but those are what I can remember right now.
Damn, that looks great man!
Finally getting around to building some of my keyboards.
Here’s the Bolsa Midway60 in deep navy with Serika 2, HaimuGeon Blacks, TX AP stabs on a POM plate.






Also having fun with the orange lounge chair lol
Oh that board looks great, and the lounge chair might need it’s own separate photo shoot - it makes a really fun background!
Arc60 in peacock with Nines, L+F+spring swapped MX Blacks, TX AP stabs, plate mount with POM plate, and force break and a sprinkling of polyfill. This case struggles with plate mount but I think I got it. You can hear a bit of the case on the enter key but it’s not ping or like an annoying resonance–so I’m okay with that–kind of character of the board. Same with the Midway honestly.
The Nines I bought from MM and have some shine near the “SDFC” area for some reason, probably from light gaming, and it bugs me a lot, but oh well.






Haha thanks. I realized that orange makes color grading pretty simple/spot on. Lets me capture accurate colors of the boards.
I also realized my girlfriend’s favorite sweater is the same orange… ![]()

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I also built my Capy60 too today.
Another (un)productive Sunday. ![]()




This was fun and looked great but I ended up putting Sixes on it.


Finally got my Nines and Sixes built.


Built these 3 blue beauties this week.

Absolutely Spectacular.
Built my F1 up today! Went with Keygeek Oats, on the HS PCB, v1.1 alum plate, Typeplus stabs (These are fast becoming my favorites right now!), & topped it off with DCS Red Alert. The type feel & sound are phenomenal IMO. It really walks a fine balance between feeling soft, but never crossing into bouncy or flexy territory. Pretty interesting feel TBH, I kinda dig it! Then it just sounds great with this setup & I’m gonna go out on a limb to say it probably sounds good with most setups thanks to it’s mounting style. The o-ring sandwich mount isolates the plate/PCB assembly from the case super good. Which puts the switch & cap sounds front & center. Super happy with board, can’t wait to experiment with some different setups in this!
Lovely pairing ![]()
Very nice setup and good choice on the keycaps!
I had the same conclusion for the typing feel, it has just the needed amount of softness: not too firm but not a bouncing nightmare either.
Thin DCS should help have a less deep sound profile (the board is rather low piched).
Tell us what you thing of the plateless configuration when you’ll have the time to test it; I have the feeling that the sound profile and feel will be very different.



