key board types

Heres the completed felt in place. Save the "holes" you'll need a few later.

felt underweartest fit

For the keyboard status lights I remove the cardboard letters from three of the keys and replaced them with translucent acetate. These were glued to short brass tubes which were in turn glued over the LEDs.

The whole frame was wiped down with denatured alcohol and sprayed with a coat of clear lacquer.

steampunk status lightslacquer the cradle

Ready to start the tedious job of positioning and gluing the new keys on

final assemblely

I cleaned the backs of the keys and the tops of the key bottoms with alcohol and affixed them with G.E. Silicon II Window and Door Sealant. Each key was carefully lined up by eye, the silicon sealant gives you and open time of about 10 minutes before it starts to skim over.

gluing the keys down

I also glued down the status lights at this time.

more gluing of keysinstalling staus lights

I wanted the enhanced keys to have proper labels on them so I disassembled several of the keys and printed labels on glossy photo paper. These I punched out of the sheet of paper with the same punch I used for the felt.

key labelsassembling key with new labels

Two old typewriters did not supply quite enough keys for the entire project, so I ran down to Joanne Fabrics and found these brass rimmed buttons.

brass rimmed buttonsbutton fixture

The backs were rounded so I attached them to a piece of wood with double-sticky tape and sanded them flat.

sanding button backs

I printed out some more labels on glossy photo paper, punched them out, blackened the edges with a Sharpie and gave them a coat of clear lacquer. They were then glued to the tops of the buttons with the silicon sealant.

attaching labels to the buttons

I covered the front and back of the keyboard with gaffer's tape to deaden the sound and give the keyboard a solid feel.

gaffers tape to deaden soundgaffers tape to cover steel

Here are the status lights lit up.

keyboard lights

Remember I said to save the felt "holes" ? here is where you'll want to use them to cover the blank posts for the formerly wide keys.

I painted the keyboard cord with Krylon Fusion gloss black paint to cover the hideous beige.

felt blank coversroman function keys

And just to show that I've met my design goal, the Lady von Slatt touch types:

Starboard

Steampunk Keyboard - Starboard

Larboard

Steampunk Keyboard - Larboard

The underside

Steampunk Keyboard - Underside

Steampunk Keyboard