deskthority

There have been some wooden keyboards on the market, but I don't think with Cherry MX Blues. Apparently a mere $2000.

we choose precious no.1 logs and make them in half-handmade way. Each of them has to go through several processes like Drying, Cutting, Carving, Milling, Lacquering, etc... Each takes a least one month to finish a wooden keyboad

In case to keep the original nature of the wood, we apply environmentally friendly lacquer to our keyboard instead of harmful color paint. the wood shows its vitality, color and the Phytoncid, after a long time, the appearance will become more shining, the touch will become warmer.

A practical art should last for a very long time, that's why we choose the Cherry Key Switch from Germany as the mechanical parts. According to the official data, Life of each key is about 50 million operations.

The Wooden Mechanical Keyboard of Kunshiman is not just a piece of work, is definitely a collection for you.

Source:
http://www.kunshiman.com.tw/p.asp?l=3&id=34
http://cn.engadget.com/tag/wooden+keyboard/

i would oil the keycaps

Those are some of the nicest wooden keyboards I have seen. For 2 grand, I wouldn't want their shitty logo on my 'board. The only other beef I have is that several of those models are really thick/big. I suppose wood loses too much structural integrity in pieces as thin as the plastic in most keyboards.

They need a designer. That 2nd pic looks like my C64 in wood.


And since there are wooden keyboards where the grain shows that case and keys have been made from a single piece of wood, this should be standard for expensive wooden 'boards. Also, this looks cnc-machined? Asian hand-made stuff looks different.

They are very nice looking. I'd like to get non-legend keycaps only to replace on my split Kinesis mod.

Hey, I got one of those from the Nigerians too!



Well, he said he was Nigerian.

I contacted them about obtaining wood keycaps only.

This is their response:
____________________________________________________
Hello~

I'm glad you enjoy our keyboard.

We surely can just sell the keycaps you mentioned,

you can just offer your design , we will make them for you.

but we have MOQ for sets of keycaps,
and we also need to know what kind of wood you choose to use.

could you provide the photo of the set of keycaps for us first?

We can replicate them in wood, but we will charge you service fee and delivery fee.

thanks in advance~

--
Best Regard.

陳柏邑
KENT CHEN
Sales Department

KUNSHIMAN PRECISION TEC CO., LTD

F308, NO.12, 2ND RD., SOUTHERN TAIWAN SCIENCE PARK, TAINAN CITY, TAIWAN 74147 R.O.C

TEL: +886+6+5056433
Mobile:+886+975215270
FAX: +886+6+5056408

____________________________________________________
2011/6/29
Hello,

Your products are absolutely beautiful.

I want to know if it is possible to purchase any of the following:
-non legended keycaps
-keycaps of different styles

I have several keyboard projects, and I would love the opportunity to possibly purchase some keycaps if that is possible. This is a link to a website with my progress:

http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:8110

I am mostly working on a Kinesis Contour keyboard. It uses about 12 different keycap profiles. Would it be possible for me to send you a set of keycaps and have you replicate them in wood?

Thank you,

For design of the keycaps I suggest one with a duck in it.

A duck? No, multiple keycaps with all the various 'duck-in-action' silhouettes from your cool avatar collection.

Reminds me of my ducky Clickclack's! When do these go into mass production?

Lol on the black duck with the evil eye. I know where he got that one from.

Plastic duckys, metal duckys, wood duckys....get the whole collection!

Do you like the metal keycaps? Any thoughts on metal keycaps for the 8 home row keys on a Kinesis Contour?

That's one sinister duck!

Duck off.

I would really want the duck crapping on the KL/ avatar... I. WAS. IN. TEARS.

Metal keycaps on light switches such as the browns or reds will change the tactile feel a little, you might or might not like it.

Those domed pieces of wood, I wonder what they are, because they don't fit any key.

webwit wrote:Those domed pieces of wood, I wonder what they are, because they don't fit any key.

Fun Asian decorations? Definitely not for keys. They look like they are scattered around the keyboard display for show.

Thanks for metal key input. I thought maybe use them for home row, or maybe better, alternate wood/metal on the 2 rows of 6 F-keys I put on the tops of the 2 key wells (got rid of 18 rubber keys) so you would better know what key you were hitting by feel (wood or metal). Maybe use wood on the home row.

Can you imagine if your house had a termite problem:S

I've been in touch with the wood keyboard manufacturer since the original posting. I'm arranging for a 1) group buy, 2) possibly distributing their products in the U.S. and Europe. Interestingly, their factory is a only a few miles away from the manufacturing company I represent. I may be able to have one of my partners go to their factory, and hopefully, next time I'm in Taiwan, I can visit

Some info for the interested:
They have only made complete keyboards, and are in the process of costing just making keys. They have not done this before, it's not their business model. They are in no way set up to make/sell individual keys.

At this early stage, an individual key is costing about $7-$17 USD depending on the wood used. Teak is the least expensive, Redwood is the most expensive.

So far, there seems to be most interest in ESC, F1-F12 keyscaps, spacebar, and keycaps with no legends. A couple people are interested in complete sets, but the cost is fairly high.

There is this thread on Geekhack you can look at for reference http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?1933 ... OQ-keycaps but it makes sense to keep any "sales"/"dialog" at each forum separate, for obvious reasons. I will link this thread in the Geekhack thread as well. There are about 10 pictures of keys in that thread.

Let me know of any questions or interest.

I'd be interested in a few different esc keys.

webwit wrote:I'd be interested in a few different esc keys.

Please consider exactly what you want, and post.

They currently are set up for cylindrical keycaps, with a Cherry MX insert.

You need to login to see that attachment, I don't have an account.

Sorry, I was experimenting with attaching/linking/etc. I think the photos are in the thread now.

Doesn't work, same thing.

I put the pics in as IMG using the editor...

You still need to be logged into geekhack to see those pictures. You can check for yourself by logging out of geekhack.

Holy crap! I'll copy from disk and attach again. Sorry, I didn't realize they were linked, I thought I had copied the image...but I copied the links.

You should strive to have higher quality members, then you won't have these issues

Here

And here

Nice, I like 'em all.