Producing An Exquisite Wooden Keyboard

Keyboards! They’ve been almost universally made out of plastic since the dawn of the microcomputer era. Meanwhile, wood is a rather desirable material and it lends itself rather well to touch-heavy human interface devices. As [ProcessX] shows us, though, it can take quite a bit of work to fabricate a keyboard entirely out of this material.

The video shows us the construction of a Japanese wooden keyboard from Hacoa, which retails for around $1000 USD. The video shows us how the wooden housing is produced from start to finish, beginning with the selection of some fine walnut. From there, we get to see how the frame is routed out and machined, along with the more delicate work to create all the keycaps out of wood, too. They’re laser engraved to give them high-quality markings that will last the test of time. What we don’t see is the construction of the electronics—it appears that’s handled separately, and the wooden frame and keycaps are then assembled around the otherwise complete existing keyboard.

It’s nice to see what it takes to produce commercial-quality parts like this out of wood. We’ve seen other wooden keyboard builds before, too.

[Thanks to John for the tip!]

41 thoughts on “Producing An Exquisite Wooden Keyboard

          1. The average train hobo from the era when those uniforms were designed was better-dressed than people who now make >1m in salary in San Francisco. It’s nice to see them still in use somewhere.

  1. I under that the Japanese take pride in their woodworking, like many of their trades each has their own jargon not taught in regular schools, but a person with moderate woodworking skills and a laser engraver could build a case and keycaps for less than $1K USD.
    If this is a negative comment, so be it. My laser engraver (usedl) cost $50, bandsaw (used) $180, shellac -free at the county recycling center. But I will admit making wooden CapsLock, and NumLock LEDs is above my pay grade!
    B^)

    1. Sometimes I think that we Germans used to have a similar mindset to the Japanese when it came to quality.
      Companies like Bosch valued quality, trust and a good reputation rather than quick money.
      Then our companies became more and more American, more and more international. Now “made in Germany” no longer has any meaning.
      I really hope the Japanese do better than us and learn from our mistakes.

      1. I do not think that the problem is that German companies became “american” they became the property of no one, thus no one takes pride in quality. The only pride the ceos take is in earning money to the share holders, if for that they have to sell it in pieces so be it. I work for a japanese company but the branch I am in is kind of autonomous, and here in DE. In my opinion, interested in quick bucks instead of good products, at least what I get from “all hands” meetings. I think quality is something like FuSa, if it is not backed in from the start then it is not there. But somethings filtered through, it is clear to me that quality (like FuSa) is something everyone contributes to :)

        1. Ale, I hope you find fulfillment in your job.
          Or that the money you earn there makes you happy.
          And that you can look back on it later with pride and a smile on your face.
          After all, it is a part of your life that you spend every day at work.

      2. Bosch went from being top-grade to absolute trash when it was shipped to Brazil. I still have West Germany-made Bosch spare parts lying around for my BMW motorcycle, and they are indestructible. I’ve never known that type of headlight bulb to burn out even once for instance, and the rectifier board is incredibly robust. Got a newly-manufactured coil, case was cracked and it let in moisture and failed within weeks. Got another and it was the same. Ordered a knock-off from China.

    2. Yeah, you can do it for yourself cheaper than that, as it rarely makes sense to put a price on hobby time. But I don’t think you could profitably sell these for less than $1k USD, at least not without cutting corners from the manual finishing and quality control time.

        1. Thankfully. 🙏 Personally, I’m exhaused by all the little people’s money talk. 😮‍💨
          People who order these products do buy them silently, do appreciate them and do not constantly whine about money.
          They are not the usual consumers who want a mass-produced product that they can wearout without spending a second thought.
          Typical consumers are free to go to McMickeys, Wallmarket or Toys B Us and buy their favorite plastic keyboards. 🙂

          1. I’m not sure.

            It might be that one sees a value in an item that is solely by its function overpriced. Aesthetic, origin, maker, material, whatever. Might be the same with hand made shoes. Or handmade clothing. Things not made in quantities but with “love”.

            Like my baker around the corner making this bread I would die for. Costs more than that in another bakery, and a lot more than in a supermarket. I know the baker loves his job and does it with special care. So sometimes I buy it and celebrate it. More often than I should.

            It might be a fine line between a right priced valuable item and an overpriced trendy rich people can buy anything show-off item.

          2. Looks like my comment got lost, but I essentially said a couple of things. First, there’s another category of foolish expensive purchase which is defined by a desperate attempt to acquire authenticity using money. This isn’t quite the same as the keyboard or your examples but is relevant. Second, I still think it’s more likely that someone is unable to afford it rather than them just being a cheap but rich person.

            Someone might use an antique typewriter as a decorative place on which to put flowers, or might get a piece of unusually high quality wood furniture only to paint over it with diluted latex paint because they think it looks “distressed” or something – even though regardless of wasting the wood, the more accurate white would be whitewash. These are attempts to receive meaningfulness, fulfillment, or connection by buying items of significance instead of decorations. But they’re trying to do it purely by shopping, while distancing themselves from any actual understanding of the items they are acquiring, and that distance makes the connection illusory.

            Second is the much simpler point that I find it very likely that a person who refuses to buy this keyboard is someone for whom it’s not financially responsible to spend $1k just so that it will have similar function but a very high quality wooden construction. I find it much less likely that they are someone who can reasonably justify spending that much on it but they simply don’t appreciate the craftsmanship because the base rate of people who should buy expensive keyboards, minus the fraction of those whose reason for buying them is because their job is e.g. gaming or programming or something, is probably a very tiny number.

      1. I think I’d like this more than an $800 smartphone or $1200 peloton. I know people who have spend well over $1k on their ultralight camping gear. But I live in the Bay Area, it’s full of people with about 10x more money than sense.

    3. Not really negative, that’s a good way to do it. But from what I’ve seen from these Japanese craftsmen (there’s a shoemaker who just won a global contest and his videos are divine) the last thing this is about is thrift. It’s luxury

    4. I am doing a woodworking (fine cabinetry) course. I showed one of my pieces on social media. A distant friend asked “can you make one like that for me?” to which I responded “€4000”. “What? €4000 for a few planks?”… Yeah, there’s about €250 of materials in it, and a full 23 days of work. With minimum wage, that comes to €4000, and then I don’t pay for workshop time.

      Off course, I was still learning at the time and could now do the same in way less time, but I don’t own a workshop so I still have to pay for that.

      In the meanwhile, a similar-looking thing is available online for about €35.

      1. I had similar conversations about my leather work. Oh could you make me a bag? £1000. Think I could get them down to maybe £700 if I treated it more as a business and set myself up for it but then it is just a hobby. Besides if I like you enough and know you long enough you will probably get something for free eventually.

    1. I’d love to see that but the first thing you’d have to do is figure out the kinds of stresses the different parts of the typewriter would experience and choose your wood accordingly.

    1. i searched around but wasn’t able to find anything with the 3 led under top right button like in the video. I don’t think the base keyb is anything special, you could get a better performing programmable wireless pcb such as the ymdk 96.

    1. Good point. The company seems to specialize in keycaps, I assume?

      A full wooden, mechanical keyboard would of course be preferable.
      But then the company would probably have to agree on a specific model.
      Something like the IBM Model M or the NEC PC-98 counterpart perhaps.

      Another reason could be that Japanese customers may prefer sleek and aesthetically pleasing designs.
      Using mostly balsa wood would make the construction very brittle or delicate.

    2. Yeah, it almost looks like a Keychron low profile goes into it.

      I kinda hoped to see how they milled the stems for the keycaps, but I guess overlaying wood on the plastic works, and is probably more durable!

  2. That is really super nice I took woodworking when I was in middle school and we had a really nice wood shop. I also did a lot of cutting of wood because we made maple syrup where I was going to school. I was in charge of that particular project. I really love working with wood and out of both desire and necessity I’m going to start trying a little bit of metal. But it would be so cool to see like a keyboard and a whole tower made like that or even a laptop have the case replaced with a really nice wooden finish. Nice craftsmanship by the way !

  3. I like these kinds of initiatives and Japan is known for following its own course, that of quality and we can learn a lot from that. It is nothing other than back to the basics of everything, back to the functional including the beautiful.

    The idea of ​​back to basics is also discussed in the interesting book “The day the World Stops Shopping” by J.B. KacKinnon, in which he gives wonderful examples of new initiatives in the countryside of Japan.

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