looking forward dudes! honeywell and big hug mt3’s look great!
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Those are currently at the polishing shop, and I actually just reached out to them today to get an ETA. (They wanted to do one test piece first and see how long it takes before giving me a turnaround time for the whole batch. Typically a single housing takes hours to prepare and polish, so it’s generally slow going—but very much worth the wait.)
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It could be I’m an idiot but it looks like that none of the included hex keys seem to fit the (two) screws on the back of the case? One feels close, but it seems to be a little smaller than the slot which will likely strip it so I haven’t tried to unscrew them any further. Feel free to tell me I’m wrong though! I don’t have any here with me so I’ll have to pick some up this week. Sucks having the case here with me but not being able to build it 
I had the same experience with the included silver hex wrench. I think it’s the “right” size since it’s certainly not a size smaller, but it didn’t quite fit and was unable to remove one of the installed screws on the back plate.
The dark grey hex wrench I had from a Norbaforce worked great.
Unfortunately, as one gets down into these smaller hex wrench and screw sizes, I’ve found that tolerances often aren’t so great and, since different companies typically make the wrenches and screws, sometimes it’s not always a perfect match. You are wise not to force it, however, to avoid stripping the head. My screws are always installed using a torque-controlled assembly screw driver, so it should never be the case that you have to apply radical amounts of torque to unseat a screw.
The rear cover plate screws are 2mm hex, so if you have any others in that size it’s worth a try. I can always send you another wrench—and for you anybody encountering this problem, just shoot an email over to shop@norbauer.com if you are encountering this problem and want to give another a try.
For whatever it’s worth, my issue is that that all the small parts like this tend to be things you can only source from China and they’re only like $0.20 a piece, so one can only expect so much. I just wish I could pay, like, $0.40 and get really good ones, but as is typical with this type of manufacturing, it seems that no manufacturer is very interested in being in that space.
Incidentally, if you do keyboard stuff often, I might recommend picking up some Hex Plus wrenches from the German company Wera, particularly 2mm and 2.5mm, which are the most common sizes for keyboards (or just get a full set). I can’t tell you how many times the special head geometry on these wrenches have saved me from situations where a normal hex wrench had stripped the screw head and I wasn’t otherwise able to get the screw out. I think they’re also made to somewhat tighter tolerances and more accurate dimensions, which one would expect for their being approximately 20x as expensive (although that still only means about $5). I’ve actually thought about just switching to including these from now on, even though it means adding about $10-15 to the price of an already expensive keyboard housing. I’d be curious to hear what people think about that.
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Hi Norbauer,
You are the man I love your work and will one day be the owner of one of your cases 
I did some research a while back on Hex L wrenches after being disappointed with many while assembling furniture. I went with the Bondhus because they are made in the USA and are solidly constructed and haven’t looked back. I would recommend everyone buys a nice set of wrenches for their personal use but I also respect you trying to keep costs down were possible.
Here are a few individual wrench suggestions:
- Wera - 05021605001 WERA 950 L 2MM LONG ARM HEX PLUS KEY
(website is way out of date but purchased things from them in the past) - PB Swiss - https://www.shop.pbtools.us/PB-210-Individual-Hex-Keys_c356.htm (nice but expensive)
- Bondhus - https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/33731639 (made in USA these are the kind I use) (alternative link: 2mm Hex Key, Short (Pkg of 50), Bondhus 28252 - Carbide Processors)
Personal full set:
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I’ve purchased several Norbauer housings - it would be a waste for me to have multiple wrenches of the same size. I could have bought a full set for the sum of the additional cost on each.
I expect cheap one-time-use wrenches included with things I have to assemble myself. Like you, I’d already purchased a cheap set of hex keys for assembling furniture and just recently bought an iFixIt Mako driver set that I’ve used on your housings.
In addition to wera, I swear by Wiha’s precision screwdriver set. Definitely worth buying nice tools to compliment your hobby. Nothing makes disassembly / reassembly more enjoyable than tools that make it easy work.
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@norbauer what pen did you use to sign these product credential folios? The line variation is 
.
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Not to steal his thunder in a reply, but there are some photos above. 
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This looks really great. What are the keycaps?
Vintage Montblanc with flex nib!
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damn that blumen set looks amazing on everything… may have to pick that up.
Is that the Columbia Godspeed set? Looks amazing!
Yep! It’s actually pretty nice, goes perfectly with the white case.
@ninjapirate Genius as always.
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He said on instagram that he thought there would be a restock of extras. Might have to pick that up!
Oops. Accidentally had too much to drink and bought a set on drop. Oh well. Thanks for the inspiration
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