This is awesome! I remember reading that wooden keycaps have to be sealed or the porous surface can become a home for bacterial growth. Have you experienced any issues with this? What did you use to seal/condition the wood?
THIS IS SO COOL! Now I want a desktop mill really really really bad. But on a more important note I think I might have figured out a way to slightly modify your process to make backlit wooden key caps. Allow me to explain: So what this would require is a 3 step milling process for each key instead of a 2 step process. For the first step, instead of milling the bottom side out to leave the cross for the switch connection, you would mill out a square to essentially make a mold reservoir for the next step. At the bottom of that mold, you would engrave a mirrored version of whatever letter or symbol you want the key cap to have. Personally I would make this character engraving a decent thickness to allow for the upper half of it to be milled away with the wood that will be milled away to make the top chamfer in the third step of the milling process. The next step would actually not involve any milling, instead you would simply fill the reservoir you made with a heavy duty clear epoxy which would fill in the backwards engraving of the character you milled in the first step. For the second step of the milling process (after the epoxy has fully dried) you would mill the same cross shape you made originally, but this time out of the epoxy. This is the part that I’m unsure about. I’m no milling expert so I have no idea how the epoxy would react to the heat made by the mill’s moving parts so if not handled properly I suspect it could end up melting the epoxy instead of making the desired shape. But assuming that works, the final step would be exactly the same as your final step in the video. Except this time milling out the chamfer for the top of the key would reveal a clear character left in the heart of the key, that could refract light through it, giving you a beautiful backlit wooden key cap.
really lovely work! i'd oil and/or clearcoat them but these must feel great on the fingers. thank you for the clear and detailed video and for sharing your files. i think i'm gonna try to edit the files to have lettering on them, and give this a go on my snapmaker v1!
It's the Bantam desktop PCB mill. They no longer sell the PCB mill itself, but they still sell a cnc mill that should work just as well. You also may be able to pick up one used, or another brand as there's nothing unique about the bantam tools mill that would prevent you from using another one.
Awesome video! Never realized wooden keycaps could look so pretty.
Truly freaking COOL. I was looking for "how to" or where to get it. I am inspired. Thanks for sharing, liked and subscribed!
This is awesome! I remember reading that wooden keycaps have to be sealed or the porous surface can become a home for bacterial growth. Have you experienced any issues with this? What did you use to seal/condition the wood?
anything youd use to seal a cutting board should be fine... btw: there was a study showing less salmonella on wooden cutting boards vs plastic ones ;)
@@gnaarW ooooh! I’d love to see that study! And thanks for the encouragement to give this a try
@@georgeaguirre5437
Cutting Boards of Plastic and Wood Contaminated Experimentally with Bacteria
From 1994 ;)
THIS IS SO COOL! Now I want a desktop mill really really really bad. But on a more important note I think I might have figured out a way to slightly modify your process to make backlit wooden key caps. Allow me to explain:
So what this would require is a 3 step milling process for each key instead of a 2 step process. For the first step, instead of milling the bottom side out to leave the cross for the switch connection, you would mill out a square to essentially make a mold reservoir for the next step. At the bottom of that mold, you would engrave a mirrored version of whatever letter or symbol you want the key cap to have. Personally I would make this character engraving a decent thickness to allow for the upper half of it to be milled away with the wood that will be milled away to make the top chamfer in the third step of the milling process. The next step would actually not involve any milling, instead you would simply fill the reservoir you made with a heavy duty clear epoxy which would fill in the backwards engraving of the character you milled in the first step. For the second step of the milling process (after the epoxy has fully dried) you would mill the same cross shape you made originally, but this time out of the epoxy. This is the part that I’m unsure about. I’m no milling expert so I have no idea how the epoxy would react to the heat made by the mill’s moving parts so if not handled properly I suspect it could end up melting the epoxy instead of making the desired shape. But assuming that works, the final step would be exactly the same as your final step in the video. Except this time milling out the chamfer for the top of the key would reveal a clear character left in the heart of the key, that could refract light through it, giving you a beautiful backlit wooden key cap.
brilliant idea benny, i think ill try it out when i get to that step on my KB project. (working on case ATM)
This was a really cool video & project. I enjoyed watching & learned a few things.
really lovely work! i'd oil and/or clearcoat them but these must feel great on the fingers. thank you for the clear and detailed video and for sharing your files. i think i'm gonna try to edit the files to have lettering on them, and give this a go on my snapmaker v1!
Linseed oil would be great
might be able to avoid surfacing with S4S lumber not sure if that was what was used
I wish bantam would sell that mill again
Right? I thought they’d stopped… did they start again? I feel like there’s been lots of recent content about them.
David Lindes they’re on the website but no way to order it. Not even a back order notice. I don’t need the new one.
@@flyingskwerrl gotcha. Bummer. :(
Thank you for sharing this!
It's a bantam CNC milling machine, but which model?
this is awesome!
Wow - how long did all that take to do?
Depends on the quantity of the keycaps. Milling 4 of them, bottoms and tops, took about an hour.
How do they sound?
Will these be for sale?
But how does they sooound?
so cool!
Where do you get flat end mills at that size? I can’t find it anywhere..
inventables.com has them also amazon
what's the machine that you are using to make these keycaps......i kinda want one for some projects
It's the Bantam desktop PCB mill. They no longer sell the PCB mill itself, but they still sell a cnc mill that should work just as well. You also may be able to pick up one used, or another brand as there's nothing unique about the bantam tools mill that would prevent you from using another one.
@@TheDarkroomDude thaks for the info!
To think that I kinda wanted to do some delicate woodworking, in retrospect, was dumb!
Sound tets?!
Laser engrave the keycap legends ???
You should sell these