Molto Bene!

[tankfulloffoxes]

Hello, salutations, good evening and good night.  It is my honor to finally join geekhack after lurking around for a good while and pining over all these keyboards I don't have/can't afford. 

Introductions have always been kind of awkward for me, but I suppose I'll start by sharing some of my background, both keyboard and non-keyboard related. 

I'm currently in school and working as an electrician (in school to become a journeyman, working as an apprentice.)  While it's good work, It's not what I originally intended, which was more along the lines of electrical engineering.  However, the idea of electrical engineering was originally sparked by me and my brother building custom computers and their peripherals in highschool.  Everyone knows you don't need a master's degree to do this though.  At any rate, I love trying to understand how things work, how they can be changed, and how that helps me in trying to make them better.  This is also the reason why I love to play video games, which brings me to my keyboard related background. 

Having never even touched a mechanical keyboard, I bought my first about a year ago, the CM Quickfire Rapid with Cherry MX blue switches.   Now, with the controversy I've seen with key switch preferences around here, I know what some of you are thinking, but my goodness, could this girl dance...I didn't even mind the noise.  In fact, I loved it!  It felt and sounded so good to type on because I could clearly feel and hear the keys as I pressed them.  Sadly though, desperate times call for desperate measures, and being the poster child for minimum wage at the time, I had to sell both my beloved keyboard and my computer. 

But this story has a happy, because now, I'm not poor!     In fact, I've rebuilt my rig, and it's running even better than I had anticipated.  The only thing missing now is to invest in a new keyboard to go along with it, and from what I've seen, there a number that I hadn't even known about.  Honestly, I'm probably more interested in modifying keyboards to fit my (and others') unique purposes rather than just buying tons of different gear, but both are exciting, and I'm very happy to finally be getting back into this hobby!

[feizor]

Welcome

[rowdy]

Welcome to Geekhack!

What kind of modifications were you thinking of?

It is s probably best to get something with a standard layout, especially the bottom row, to make finding keycap replacements much easier.  Anything standard ANSI with 1.25x modifiers will be a good base to start from.

[tankfulloffoxes]

As far as keyboards go, I was thinking case modification for the most part.  I have a woodworking shop, and I thought it would be pretty cool to do an exotic hardwood case, like tulipwood or wenge, maybe have the keycaps match the grain somehow. 

I'm actually patiently waiting for a delivery that's suppose to arrive today.  I play a lot of mmo's and moba's, and the orbweaver looks pretty cool for that, but it's way too expensive, and I'd still want an analog stick instead of the dpad as well as mechanical keys.  I've looked over ripster's mod for the n52 to convert to mechanical keys, which is what I'll probably follow, and I have my own idea of how I'm going to implement the analog stick. 

When everything arrives, I'll make a thread in the projects section here if anyone is interested in the modification of it.

[FrostyToast]

I'm actually patiently waiting for a delivery that's suppose to arrive today.  I play a lot of mmo's and moba's, and the orbweaver looks pretty cool for that, but it's way too expensive, and I'd still want an analog stick instead of the dpad as well as mechanical keys.  I've looked over ripster's mod for the n52 to convert to mechanical keys, which is what I'll probably follow, and I have my own idea of how I'm going to implement the analog stick. 

When everything arrives, I'll make a thread in the projects section here if anyone is interested in the modification of it.

DEFINITELY interested in this project.
I hate that the orb weaver doesn't allow for standard keycaps and I would love an analog stick as it is better to use than wasd.

[tankfulloffoxes]

Little disappointed, just got back from the mailbox, and no n52, only the mx blues    It sucks trying to be patient...

[rowdy]

As far as keyboards go, I was thinking case modification for the most part.  I have a woodworking shop, and I thought it would be pretty cool to do an exotic hardwood case, like tulipwood or wenge, maybe have the keycaps match the grain somehow. 

I'm actually patiently waiting for a delivery that's suppose to arrive today.  I play a lot of mmo's and moba's, and the orbweaver looks pretty cool for that, but it's way too expensive, and I'd still want an analog stick instead of the dpad as well as mechanical keys.  I've looked over ripster's mod for the n52 to convert to mechanical keys, which is what I'll probably follow, and I have my own idea of how I'm going to implement the analog stick. 

When everything arrives, I'll make a thread in the projects section here if anyone is interested in the modification of it.

Wooden cases are really nice if they are done well.  We have a few wood artisans resident on GH, so don't be shy to start a thread to discuss what you are planning

Little disappointed, just got back from the mailbox, and no n52, only the mx blues    It sucks trying to be patient...

You should try living in Australia - takes around 3 weeks for stuff to reach us, that is if it doesn't get delayed along the way