Tim Hayward: I built the Jaguar E-Type of computer keyboardsAccessibility helpSkip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to footer
HTSI Gadgets<br>Add to myFTGet instant alerts for this topic<br>Manage your delivery channels hereRemove from myFT
Tim Hayward: I built the Jaguar E-Type of computer keyboards<br>The FT columnist enters the world of bespoke customisation
© Matilda Hill-Jenkins
Tim Hayward: I built the Jaguar E-Type of computer keyboards on x (opens in a new window)
Tim Hayward: I built the Jaguar E-Type of computer keyboards on facebook (opens in a new window)
Tim Hayward: I built the Jaguar E-Type of computer keyboards on linkedin (opens in a new window)
Tim Hayward: I built the Jaguar E-Type of computer keyboards on whatsapp (opens in a new window)
Save
Tim Hayward: I built the Jaguar E-Type of computer keyboards on x (opens in a new window)
Tim Hayward: I built the Jaguar E-Type of computer keyboards on facebook (opens in a new window)
Tim Hayward: I built the Jaguar E-Type of computer keyboards on linkedin (opens in a new window)
Tim Hayward: I built the Jaguar E-Type of computer keyboards on whatsapp (opens in a new window)
Save
Tim Hayward. Photography by Matilda Hill-Jenkins
PublishedJune 3 2026
Jump to comments sectionPrint this page
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free<br>Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Like you, I use a keyboard every day. The computer is essential and ubiquitous, and the keyboard is where it touches our bodies – where we interact. I love my MacBook Pro. It’s fast, light, clean, portable. Jony Ive has created the most beautiful, functional design object imaginable and I am entirely unaware of the keyboard. It’s a transparent, neutral input device. But it doesn’t inspire, it doesn’t delight, and surely I deserve better?<br>I can’t remember where I first read that gamers had started customising keyboards. They looked horrible. All brightly coloured neon and bizarre custom lettering on the keycap (the bit you have to press). But on older “mechanical” keyboards you can snap out the individual “switch” – the mechanism under each key – and replace it. The geeks talked in arcane slang about the characteristics of individual replacements: “clicky”, “linear” or “tactile”. Each individual keycap can be snapped into place with a custom-cut Neoprene buffer and then hand-lubricated to reduce friction, leaving you with a keyboard that is tailored to your exact typing style – or, perhaps more accurately, your own aesthetic preferences around sound and touch.<br>A custom CNC-ed case with a Topre keyboard © Matilda Hill-JenkinsDescent was precipitous. I tested samples of all the switches I could find and was about to order up a load when I read about the grail: whole boards rather than individually swappable switches, introduced by the Topre Corporation in Japan since 1976. These were the boards supplied to companies such as NCR and Hitachi for their terminals, registers and ticketing systems.<br>Each Topre key is a non-contact electrostatic switch. When the keycap is struck, a silicone dome beneath it deforms with a physical, audible feedback. Enthusiasts call this the “thock”. There’s a change in the electrical capacitance that makes the connection and then a hair-thin conical spring returns the key beneath your finger. It’s ridiculously old-fashioned, over-engineered, sensual and heartbreakingly gorgeous.<br>Topre still manufactures keyboards under the brand name Realforce, but they’re woefully dull in appearance. Prettier HHKB (Happy Hacker Keyboards) use Topre guts. But these are mostly aimed at screen-tanned gamers, hopped-up on energy drinks and slaughtering orcs. I wanted something on which to quietly write the Great Western Novel. And I reckoned I could muster up just enough skill to have a go at building my own.<br>A corner of Hayward’s workroom with crates of materials, 3D printers and his grandfather’s apprentice chest © Matilda Hill-Jenkins<br>Reassembly line: working on a keyboard<br>Removing the PCB – the printed circuit board the keyboard is built on Placing the domes
Fitting the keyboard into the case Fitting the keycaps
The first board I assembled was intentionally small, inspired by my grandad’s 1952 Oliver portable typewriter. Via an obscure website based in Malaysia I was able to reach someone machining cases out of slabs of solid metal. I chose one into which I could insert a neat little HHKB, 60 per cent-size keyboard. I transferred MYR1,649 (about £300) via PayPal to a name I couldn’t read, put the entire investment down to insane, misplaced nerdery and mentally wrote it off.<br>Six weeks later the case arrived. It was everything I’d hoped for: solid, massively engineered, machined to ridiculously tight tolerances and a quite revolting colour. It took a couple of weeks to find a grey crackle-finish enamel that approximated the old Oliver. I sprayed it carefully and baked it in the oven (180ºC fan, 45 minutes).<br>Hayward...