i got a little mechanical keyboard crazy when i built my first pc, and i got pretty deep into the ""community"" for the better part of a decade. i think they've become a little too much of an opportunity to flex peoples wealth these days, but i still really appreciate the small groups of makers out there creating cool new designs. i am still somewhat interested in the progression of the technology these days, but i only really get on projects that are super affordable and require a bit of work to complete, hence my collection of incredibly sketchy looking boards

praxis

i got a crazy deal on this kit, somewhere in the range of a hundred australian dollars before keycaps and switches. i'm fond of injection moulded boards, especially clear ones that show all the bracing, separation lines and threaded inserts. it feels really genuine to me. what i'm more middling on is the colour - this is my first non-gimmick board that hasn't been a neutral tone, and i actually held off on making it for literally a year because i felt like it needed purple keycaps to match properly. i also feel like it clashes a little with my much more neutral desk, even with the black keycaps. overall the board feels and sounds really nice, and it's solid in a way a lot of new boards aren't. coming from my more custom alice ish layout (see the μlice) i don't really love the bottom row, which suffers from a case of wkl elitism, and i really don't love the keys on the left side as they clash with my muscle memory just about every other keyboard for any of the left side modifiers, but you can leave them out with no real downside (except creating a tiny little dust trap)

1x2

this keyboard is actually one of my newest, and was designed to ape on this lego brick - the dimensions are almost identical to the original brick, and also include its completely nonsensical layout. i actually made the project available on github, not that i think many people would be too interested in making one

refitted cherry g1800

this sleeper is the product one of my favourite taobao hauls. the case is from the skanti offices in denmark and had a bit of a rough life - it's covered in scratches and wear marks. the internal pcb is a tkc1800 that i was insanely lucky to find, and i've fashioned a usb mini b extender cable so that it can be disconnected and moved around, instead of using the old fixed cable. the electrical tape is to dim the lock lights because my leds were way too bright

aek60

this one is a cannibalised apple extended keyboard, including original alps orange switches. the spacebar was yellowed to a deep caramel colour, but i did my first retrobright attempt and i reckon it turned out pretty good! the keyboard itself feels and sounds really good, and going through the effort of importing an extra caps lock key from the states to use as short right shift was absolutely worth the trouble - the guy who sent them to me is a semi-retired physics (i think) professor who included a load of other fliers and cds from his various interests to get the package to its minimum weight. i might hunt them down some time and share them here because theyre honestly pretty interesting

alps64

a friend offered me an old mck-101sx and i literally cut up the plastic plate with a hacksaw. the switches are soldered into an old damaged alps64 pcb that has wire jumpers connecting the switches that have lifted pcb pads

dilly

this one got bought on an absolute whim because kits like this used to be like forty bucks. its not a super useful layout but this one actually got loads of use as a macro board at my last office job, as you can tell from the horrible colour the paper stickers have turned

downbubble

to the best of my knowledge this is one of three existing downbubbles, a creation by the ever charming flehrad. the official version has a gigantic cnc aluminium case, but i went the cheap options. the turned numpad is actually a super convenient addition and you honestly forget that it's a bit weird after using it for just a few minutes. the board is currently sitting in my sin bin because i tried my hardest, but i dont really like silent linear switches. i'll probably swap them out one day in the future

gherkin

another whim purchase, and equally useless. this one has a laser etched image of my friend ed on the back, but i dont have a good photo

hhkb

and here is my favourite keyboard that i've ever owned - i'm typing on it as we speak. my partner bought me an hhkb when they visited japan close to 10 years ago, and this thing has suffered through a thousand different modifications, the most important being the resin high profile caps i got made by blizzardmods. the shape looks a little odd but i find the raised edges and dished centres really improve my typing experience

kara

rama, the designer of this board, has somewhat blotted their copybook in the last couple of years, but i managed to grab this one both before the drama, and before their massive multiyear wait times set in. it's a really nice feeling board and i'm super happy with it, but i've been waiting on a replacement black plate for two years now

μlice

this board was part of an exercise to build an 'alice' style keyboard for the minimum possible price, hence 'micro'. i put it together two sojus deep after one of the worst days of my professional life, which was incredibly therapeutic, but also resulting in the wiring getting crazier as i worked across the columns. regardless, i think the look is really nifty and the layout is super ergonomic and comfortable

rf23u

you know youve sunk to a new level of stupid when you get this excited about a numpad, but the rf23u is an incredible tool if you need to slap huge amounts of numbers into a spreadsheet. having the esc, backspace, tab and shift keys up the top gives a lot of utility that is normally missing and would require a second hand, and the dedicated = and 00 keys speed up functions and big number respectively. this one has been modded with bke redux domes, but i think theyre a little loud and fatiguing, and will probably swap them back if i ever go back to an office job

seinfeld60

this VERY silly design actually hides a pretty interesting board - the bleach60 was a pcb that takes smk switches, which are these kind of horrific evil halfway point between alps and cherry. my friend dra did a build log with some here. as for the keycaps, turns out that if you send an email to wasd keyboards, they can substitute whatever switch profiles you'd like before they do the printing, which means i got an hhkb style splite right shift and split backspace. hilariously, this board is probably in my top three most used keyboards, mostly because it just works

zoo96

and finally, probably my most expensive keyboard project. i got the case cnc milled at a chinese fab for something like 600 australian dollars, which was a pretty silly thing to do. the board inside is an xd96, and i actually had to update the official qmk repo because they didnt have all of this boards layouts available. the switches are just cherry clears, and the keycaps are 'simpleja' which are just an expanded set of standard japanese office keyboard keys that a friend gifted me. the heavy and expensive case thankfully makes it feel really solid, but it doesnt get heaps of use anymore since i dont use my numpad in most day-to-day tasks