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Keyboard Update

2020-12-02T19:13

Yesterday spent a full day in the shed for what must be the first time in six months. It's weird to get so much done in one spell. I usually only get two or three hours at a time.

The first job was to finish that backplate. After painting it, the holes were a little too tight. This made the switches distort a little causing the stems to bind. I filed out the tight holes and got all the switches working nicely. The plate is slightly too thick for the retaining clips to hold onto the back, but I doubt it will matter. They are snug and once they're soldered together aren't going to move.

I checked out how it looked with a mostly full set of keycaps. These won't be the keycaps that I will use, but shows that the cuts are accurate enough and that they keys all sit straight.

Plate (top)

Plate (bottom)

And then with the remaining four hours I went back to the case. I was able to pretty much finish the main construction. But I'm not happy with the shoulders. They're not as tight as I would like. Rather than throw it out and start again, I think I will paint this one. I can fill the shoulders and then hide the filler. I've wanted to do a painted keyboard for a while.

I hope that as it's used, the paint will rub through and chips will appear. It should age like a well loved Stratocaster. I won't use Nitrocellulose paint like was done on those vintage guitars because that's too expensive. Instead, I'll put on a thin coat of acrylic car paint which I think is used on 80s and 90s era Strats. That will be just as good. It will take longer to wear. I use a keyboard a lot more than most guitars, but I suppose keyboards take less abuse than a guitar. I guess I'll have to wait an see how it wears.