Making of a wooden keycap

[Leimi]

Hey,

I thought that may interest some of you. A friend built a keycap with wood (for my birthday, yay!) and I find it really impressive how he made it and how it ended up.

He cut some wood for each part of the keycap and glued them together. Here are photos: http://imgur.com/a/gfqJz

[SpAmRaY]

very nice looking cap!

[CPTBadAss]

That stem design is pretty clever.

[infiniti]

Nice! Making the stem was very interesting.

Thanks for sharing!

[agodinhost]

awesome hand work!
sad it would be way expensive to make 40
way expensive ...
I bet that your friend worked more than 2 hours to make only this one!
 

[Leimi]

very nice looking cap!

That stem design is pretty clever.

Nice!

awesome hand work!

Thanks for him!

sad it would be way expensive to make 40
way expensive ...
I bet that your friend worked more than 2 hours to make only this one!
 

He didn't tell me exactly but pretty sure he did it over a week, working a couple hours here and there. Definitely took more than 2 hours for this first one
He's thinking about a way to make some more in a less time-consuming way!

[jacobolus]

I recommend using a CNC router. :-) Should be possible to make each keycap one solid part, no gluing required.

[Leimi]

I recommend using a CNC router. :-) Should be possible to make each keycap one solid part, no gluing required.

Yeah, thought about it! Doesn't have (access to) one for now actually but definitely looking into it.

[nubbinator]

I recommend using a CNC router. :-) Should be possible to make each keycap one solid part, no gluing required.

It would still require a bit of hand shaping to make it nice.  I've made several wooden caps with transplanted stems (too much work to make a stem like OP) and to really get them feeling nice, you have to hand shape them.

Anyways, cool work OP and looking forward to seeing if you can make them an easier way and keep a consistent sized stem. 

[deltuhhh]

Very nice! I do believe it is possible to make this using only one piece without a CNC Router. I can't remember what it's called but it's essentially a manual CNC Router similar to a vertical mill.

[jacobolus]

It would still require a bit of hand shaping to make it nice.  I've made several wooden caps with transplanted stems (too much work to make a stem like OP) and to really get them feeling nice, you have to hand shape them.

I知 going to start doing some testing of this a few weeks after KeyCon (also trying to cnc cut cases, and build a trackball, and work on some programming projects, etc., so no immediate timeline). You might be right, but I hope not, because it would be really nice to be able to cut acceptable keycaps on a CNC router without inordinately much extra work (outside the inevitable sanding and finishing). I hope with the proper mill bits and cut paths it値l be possible to do a pretty good job, but we値l see.

[nubbinator]

I知 going to start doing some testing of this a few weeks after KeyCon (also trying to cnc cut cases, and build a trackball, and work on some programming projects, etc., so no immediate timeline). You might be right, but I hope not, because it would be really nice to be able to cut acceptable keycaps on a CNC router without inordinately much extra work (outside the inevitable sanding and finishing). I hope with the proper mill bits and cut paths it値l be possible to do a pretty good job, but we値l see.

If you want some nice scooped caps, I don't think a CNC router will be enough, not from what I've seen.  All the wooden caps I did, I did a fair bit of shaping to make them nice.  Spacebars are the worst for shaping since you have to spend so much time on it to make it nice.  It shouldn't be hard to get a nice rough shape with a router, but you'll need to hand finish it.

[jacobolus]

If you want some nice scooped caps, I don't think a CNC router will be enough, not from what I've seen.  All the wooden caps I did, I did a fair bit of shaping to make them nice.  Spacebars are the worst for shaping since you have to spend so much time on it to make it nice.  It shouldn't be hard to get a nice rough shape with a router, but you'll need to hand finish it.

Did you use a ball-end bit with a proper 3-d cut path?

[The_Beast]

If you want some nice scooped caps, I don't think a CNC router will be enough, not from what I've seen.  All the wooden caps I did, I did a fair bit of shaping to make them nice.  Spacebars are the worst for shaping since you have to spend so much time on it to make it nice.  It shouldn't be hard to get a nice rough shape with a router, but you'll need to hand finish it.

Did you use a ball-end bit with a proper 3-d cut path?

bull nose would be a bit better than ball nose (for surface finish), but since you're more than likely going to be doing secondary finishing (sanding in the case of wood) it doesn't really matter.

Other than that, a cap should be pretty easy as long as you have the right tooling/hold downs

[jacobolus]

bull nose would be a bit better than ball nose (for surface finish),

How does a bull nose help, if we池e trying to make a cylindrical top with a 3-axis mill? Seems to me like we want the largest ball-nose bit we can find smaller than the size of the cylinder. I plan to try using a 1/4" ball end mill. Probably won稚 be for a few weeks though. [I admit I知 a total novice at this. So everything I say could be totally wrong. ]

[kurplop]

Very nice work.

[CPTBadAss]

Very nice! I do believe it is possible to make this using only one piece without a CNC Router. I can't remember what it's called but it's essentially a manual CNC Router similar to a vertical mill.

Just an FYI, manual CNC router is a contradiction. CNC is computer numeric control meaning the tool is controlled by a computer that is programmed for the run. Manual means you're controlling it personally with your hands. It can only be one or another, not both.