Not really a fan of the other cases, but this one is more up my alley. I’d be in for a PC variant as well as a polished SS or brass. (Also, the pink plate looks pretty cool.)
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A solid brass one, The HHHKB, Heaviest Happy Hacking Keyboard.
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I would be extremely hyped for a white case/pink plate combo, like rendered.
I think a lot of us would be.
Heh, well frankly so would I! So I will definitely ask how much it costs. Custom Pantone matches on resins are often expensive, but I haven’t actually explored that yet with this vendor, as I’ve been mostly focused on mechanical properties of the part up to this point. I’ll take it up with them today. 
Indeed it is.
I’ve never even seen one. Do you have one you want to loan me to try? It’s possible the Pro 2 housing is already compatible with it.
That isn’t just a feeling; it’s absolutely true, and it’s a sign, in my view, that I’m doing things as I would hope to. I can’t speak to any broader trends in the keyboard world because I mostly don’t pay attention to them, but with my products at least, increasing costs are always because of actual increases in the cost of production related to my pursuit of technical and aesthetic improvements. As it happens, my financial safety margins on every project have actually consistently gone down from project to project, despite drastically increasing costs and retail prices as a result of my pursuit of these improvements. My decreasing margins are just because I know that the prices get higher as I work with higher-end vendors and more complex manufacturing processes, and I try to soften the blow for that as much as I can for the community. And the only place that can come from is my margins.
If you look at my first Norbatouch run (both the design and the type of factories making the parts) and where I am now with the Norbaforce and subsequent projects, one could easily argue that it’s impressive that my prices haven’t gone up more. I’ve gone from a super-simple 3-axis design made at a factory in China to these compound-curve designs made on 5-axis machines in Silicon Valley that are literally the same day turning out parts for SpaceX and Tesla, parts made from American alloys, finished by USA companies doing high-end commercial consumer products work, and now creating an injection molded part with obsessive technical requirements, down to the hand-polished finish on 120 tiny slider rails. All to do a run of, optimistically, like 100-200 keyboards.
Anyway, my goal is just to make the best stuff possible–things that nobody else would make if I didn’t–and then hope that the economics work out. I want to make people’s one dream keyboard, even if that’s a different keyboard for different people. I’ll leave cost optimization of accessible consumer products to Razer, because that’s a skill and desire I just don’t have.
FWIW, so far I mostly just about break even or lose money year over year from my keyboard work. If I were rational, I ought frankly to be charging more, or giving up. But fortunately for the outcomes of these projects at least, I’m not particularly rational when it comes to keyboards. Best I can do is to offer the similarly irrational to join to me in that imprudence. If you’re not similarly afflicted, you have my envy and respect.
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Then why do I have multiple Norbauer cases? 
Ha. Well, you’re certainly not alone in that (at this point, I’d say that a major portion portion, if not a majority, of my sales come from repeat clients), but as to whether that is a sane and rational thing to do (owning a vast collection of fancy keyboards), I’ll leave it at your discretion, whim, and/or quantity of disposable dollars.
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if it comes in black i’m in
any estimates on date?
I’m going to have to sit this out, my computer desperately needs an upgrade first.
Hopefully there will be an R2 in the future!
Happy to loan you one of my Pro1s! It’s close to the Pro2 in many ways. DM me where I should ship it.
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Changed my mind. I’ll try to sell some stuff and definitely will be joining this. As said, I do think this will be my dream keyboard. Just don’t make have to choose between beautiful colors, I’ll definitely have a hard time deciding that ha.
This is absolutely incredible to see, everything about this is peak Nobauer. I love this so much and i despise the HHKB layout lol. We will have to see if I break and get one.
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Haha. That’s pretty much how I feel about this project. It has been so much fun to try to solve these technical challenges that I’ve almost forgotten that I’m not likely ever to type regularly on something with an HHKB layout. 
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I’m hoping to have a GB up probably like within the next month or so. The injection molded samples are supposed to back to me by the end of next week, but factories always slip their deadlines so who knows. As soon as I have the plate samples and am happy with them I just need to shoot some typing tests so folks get a sense of the sound and then take some photos. All the other details are worked out.
ooohhhh this is sooner than i was expecting and might not be able to afford it if so 
nyc just opened up again today so who knows
also have you considered running a hasu controller GB along with it? I love the hhkb layout but i also love being able to program my board
i believe there are several open source designs for HHKB controllers floating around and would be very interested in purchasing one along with my case
i believe they already run on TMK/QMK so it shouldn’t be too hard getting them on VIA
just a thought i had
This is sort of beyond my realm of expertise at the moment. Maybe someone would care to independently organize one to coincide with my offering. I’d certainly be in favor.
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just spoken to mr hineybush and he says he’ll look into it
the controller is open source so it shouldn’t be a major hassle either way
it’s already VIA supported as well (found it on the list) so we live
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Any chance of Polycarbonate version?
@norbauer since you’re recreating the plate, you could (in theory) offer other layouts, right? I’m assuming the tooling costs for a new mold are huge, but for example, you could have the delete key on the number row where some of us prefer it 
…bracing myself for angry comments from those who consider this blasphemy