Modding my wireless keyboard

33 Comments / Journal / By

Sometimes, a girl needs a break from things she has to do and takes it by doing something she wants to do, which uses exactly the same skill sets as the things she’s taking a break from. For instance, I’ve been doing a lot of book binding and work with marbled papers for the show Prisoner of the Crown.

As noted elsewhere, I have a weakness for paper and it wasn’t really possible for me to handle all of these papers without coveting. Especially since I had them scanned and was printing them onto giant sticker sheets for work anyway.

Giant sticker sheets… hm. And I’ve just gotten this new $10 folding keyboard.

Bottom of closed Palm keyboard mod
So, while I was waiting for something else to dry, I made this.

Palm keyboard modFrom the outside it doesn’t look that much different from a makeup case or small book. In fact, I thought about putting lettering on it, but decided I liked the cleanness of the lines.

Palm Keyboard mod openingWell, that and everything on this moves as it opens.

Open Palm Keyboard modThe keys are a slightly modified version of the Kowal Portable keyboard. I used a different paper for the interior. I thought about doing brass cogs instead, but decided that I liked the idea of playing with book motifs instead, so went with a contrasting endpaper. I may swap this endpaper out though for something more interesting.

At the moment the infrared wand is painted bronze, though I might change it to a red gloss, like a silk ribbon bookmark. Alas, there’s not enough space for another layer of thickness in here, so it can’t be actual silk.

That’s also why the space bar is not wood. I cut the pieces but even paper thin wood was too thick for this to handle.

Closeup Palm Keyboard modBecause the keyboard has much snugger margins for fit the whole thing is done with laser printed regular sticker paper (instead of the schtickers I used on the Kowal Portable) and coated with ModgePodge. Yep. This is a decoupage keyboard.

It’s a little stiff, opening it, but I think that’ll loosen up.

Back of palm keyboard modAnd this is what people sitting across from me will see.

I wonder how long it will take before I feel compelled to bronze my Palm Pilot?
Did you know you can support Mary Robinette on Patreon?
Become a patron at Patreon!

33 thoughts on “Modding my wireless keyboard”

  1. Julia

    If I could live without my Macbook for longer than approximately 12 hours, I’d beg you to let me give you money to decoupage/steampunk it. The starburst crack on the upper half’s casing (and the ensuing need to protect it as my pink Speck cover does) would make it interesting…

    THAT IS SO FREAKING COOL THOUGH. I LOVE IT.

      1. Julia

        Indulge me, because my net skills are failing (and it may be due to this Son of Frankenstein cocktail I seem to have thrown together out of things that should not go together) and link me to your con schedule? I tend to not venture out of Florida, but to meet my Net crush and have a cool portable typewriter I could see about making an exception…

        1. Mary Robinette Kowal

          I am lame and have not posted my con schedule for the year, but I can rattle them off for you.
          Wiscon next weekend.
          Readercon July 17-20 (Boston)
          Worldcon August 6th-10th (Denver)
          Maybe World Fantasy, but money is looking tight.

          Any good cons in Florida?

        2. Julia

          Not that I know of that would cater to you, honestly, as MegaConvention has already gone by (focuses on all types of geekery) and the rest are pretty much anime/Japanese culture-themed.

          Have you thought about attending Dragon*Con in Atlanta in September?

        4. Julia

          So I went through Wikipedia’s list of “science fiction conventions” and I have come up with these that you might be interested in…

          Con*Stellation, Huntsville, Alabama: http://www.con-stellation.org/constell/index.html
          EyeCon, Orlando, Florida: http://www.eyeconfla.com/
          OASIS, Orlando, Florida: http://oasfis.org/oasis/ (but that’s next weekend, haha, and some weird guy we both know is gonna be there as a guest, apparently…I gotta take my goddaughter to the out-of-town hospital then, argh!)
          Ancient City Con, Jacksonville, Florida: http://www.ancientcitycon.com/ (If you came to this, after I stopped screaming for several days in pure and utter glee, I would be there with bells on!!!)
          Anime Festival Orlando, Orlando, Florida: http://www.animefestivalorlando.com/ (This is listed as a sci-fi convention as well, and I include it because I am confirmed to be there doing Asian ball-jointed doll stuff, but I generally have such tunnel vision at anime conventions these days I don’t know how sci-fi it honestly is, but if it tickles your fancy…)
          Dragon*Con, Atlanta, Georgia: http://www.dragoncon.org/ (this is a giant, GIANT convention)
          Necronomicon, Tampa, Florida: http://www.stonehill.org/necro.htm

        6. Julia

          So WordPress hates me, I think, for the comment I’ve attempted to post three times now. Please check your friends list on LJ for what I was trying to post, lol. (I hope this posts!)

        7. Mary Robinette Kowal

          There, there. It doesn’t hate you, it just holds comments with multiple links for moderation. I used to have that detail mentioned in the comments, but it looks like it vanished when I restored after the hacking incident.

          I’ll work on fixing that this week.

        8. Julia

          You know, I thought that might be the case, but–*is momentarily distracted by Alton Brown on Iron Chef America Sharpie-ing up his honeybee bicep tattoo to explain the honeymaking process*

          O_o oooookay–but yeah, WordPress is a strange animal to me. I’ve really only used Blogger and LiveJournal with any sort of regularity since the last millennium.

          *hopes for other readers to chime in and say they’ll be going to any of these so you’ll have more incentive to go!*

        10. Julia

          I see how this is. I make you blush and you return the favour.

          *waves the first fansign: “MRK ROX MY SOX!”*

    1. Mary Robinette Kowal

      Funny you should mention that… There are two spots where I want to replace the rubber with leather.

      Oh, and you, sir, totally need to bind a laptop into a leathercraft book, if you haven’t done so already.

    1. Mary Robinette Kowal

      I’m not sure. The initial keyboard was less than an hour. The rest of the papering I did in spurts while waiting on other projects to dry. Maybe three hours all told?

      I left it shut last night and this morning it felt like it was glued that way. Fortunately, not, just a little sticky from the humidity. I’ll have to seal it, I think.

  9. Zoid

    I’ve soooooooo been waiting for you to do this!

    Now I can ask you my geeky little questions.

    ummm please!!!!

    Did you pop off the keys like on your laptop? (the keys on mine are gray and I’ll prob. be painting them.)

    I know you just finished this. I’ve just had thoughts about the edges coming up. Also getting a smooth covering over the rounded corners.

    Just how much disasembly did you have to do?

    Now I wait for a response with baited breath (yum sushi!!) from the great Queen of Craftines.

    1. Mary Robinette Kowal

      Did you pop off the keys like on your laptop? (the keys on mine are gray and I’ll prob. be painting them.)

      Just how much disasembly did you have to do?I did not pop the keys off on this one. I popped one off of my old broken keyboard as a test and discovered that I could not pop them back on. It was technically possibly but impractical as it had two moving parts underneath.

      I know you just finished this. I’ve just had thoughts about the edges coming up. Also getting a smooth covering over the rounded corners.

      The paper was thin enough that rounding the corners wasn’t a problem. I trimmed a couple of darts in, but otherwise just smoothed it.

      Just how much disasembly did you have to do?

      None. But I did have a judicious use of waxed paper around the antenna when doing the interior paper.

  10. David Loftus

    >> Any good cons in Florida?

    Well, there’s this GREAT beachfront property that I can get you for a steal . . .

    [Sorry!]

    As for the new design, it’s weigh kewl; sort of an artsy version of combat camouflage.

Comments are closed.

Start typing and press enter to search

Scroll to Top