deskthority

I took down a set of shelves. Now I've got loadsa planks of wood.

Can I cut cherry switch sized holes into them to make a "plate"?

I guess I'd start with a drill? Then how do I make the hole square?

File?

haha

erm, don't plate mount cherry's have little clips to go behind a thin plate? you might have to use pcb mount ones and glue them in or something.

Aside from that, hobby and fine woodworking shops should have stuff that's good for that. Coping saw, keyhole saw, files, rasps, little woodcarving chisels and gouges. I particularly recommend the latter if you get good quality ones. A hacksaw blade would probably good for getting right into the corners and making them square, maybe a mini-size one.

To drill a square hole with somewhat rounded corners,
you "just" have to use the principle of the Reuleaux triangle
(on which, by the way, Wankel engines are based):

possum wrote:erm, don't plate mount cherry's have little clips to go behind a thin plate? you might have to use pcb mount ones and glue them in or something.

All Cherry MX switches have clips that snap the switch to the plate. The only difference between PCB-mount and plate-mount is that the PCB-mount switches have two tabs on the underside for locking it in special holes in the PCB. There are keyboards that have a plate and locking holes in the PCB, but they are few.
A plate should be 1.5 +/- 0.1 mm, and that is too thin for wood, but you could probably glue switches in holes in thicker planks.

I would use a drill press to drill the corners with a small drill and the centre with a larger drill. Then I would clean up the rest with a sharp chisel and some files.

kbdfr wrote:-snip-

That is the best thing I've seen all week. Thank you.