Key displaying

simoncpage

Anyone who has seen a previous post by me would have seen my file tray storage which I like but it’s not ideal as I have them stacked. This is my latest display using a glass dome which is still a little bit work in progress. The dome rotates on a ball bearing lazy Susan and the keys are sitting on 3mm steel rods and those that aren’t hollow are on magnets (needs to find some better magnets).

How is do you display your keys?

Warren63

That makes them display better Simon, very similar to mine on the burr walnut except mine does not rotate.

Huw Eastwood

Simon, the hollow pipe keys fitted on rods makes sense, but a better solution to the male keys with solid pins would simply be holes drilled in the wooden base to stand them in. It would look better visually and dispense with the magnets and the hassles.

simoncpage

Huw Eastwood wrote
Simon, the hollow pipe keys fitted on rods makes sense, but a better solution to the male keys with solid pins would simply be holes drilled in the wooden base to stand them in. It would look better visually and dispense with the magnets and the hassles.

Yep the initial issue with that is that the base isn’t very thick and not all the keys have a big enough stem from bit that it will support the key well.

However the main issue is that it means that key is fixed in that display and if I want to swap out with better keys I can’t really do that only with ones that will fit the hole. I kind of saw the displays as things I would change and was going to use them to display my current favourite keys. The steel rods work well and I was trying to think of a way to could maybe make a nice shepherds hook at the end so some could hang - as the 3mm rods are strong enough to support even some of the heavier bigger keys.

How do you display your keys Huw?

[unknown]

Warren63

What size are the domes Simon and are they glass or Perspex? Do they come in other sizes too? They’re a great idea and I have a few other projects I could possibly use them on ! Great idea with the magnets too, I assume they’re the super strong earth magnets? Another suggestion could be using the flexible magnetic sheets available on top of the wood and then covering with green, red or whatever colour felt/baize you choose to use. That would give you a better magnetic contact and save you from drilling the underside of the wood (if that’s how you do it).

simoncpage

Warren63 wrote
What size are the domes Simon and are they glass or Perspex? Do they come in other sizes too? They’re a great idea and I have a few other projects I could possibly use them on ! Great idea with the magnets too, I assume they’re the super strong earth magnets? Another suggestion could be using the flexible magnetic sheets available on top of the wood and then covering with green, red or whatever colour felt/baize you choose to use. That would give you a better magnetic contact and save you from drilling the underside of the wood (if that’s how you do it).

Glass, I’m not a fan of Perpex

One dome I got from Ikea which is about 25cm (£15) and the other from Amazon which is 36cm (£30).

The rotating base I also got from Amazon (£9) and is 10cm clear plastic smooth ball bearing rotating base (bases range from 15cm to 21cm so works well). I put some clear rubber feet (£4) on the bottom of this and the weight of the dome and keys holds it nice on the rotating bases.

Issue with a magnetic base is that if you aren’t careful all the keys stick to each other as they are all magnetic effectively. I think having a combination of rods and magnets at certain places works best. The magnets are very strong but just right that they don’t magnetise the key too much that they pull on others - I’ve currently just used blutak but I’m going to glue them or make a hole in the base to hold the magnet flush as I think that will work best. I’m also as I said thinking about making shepherd hooks to hang just haven’t worked out the logistics of how to get them to be consistent.

[unknown]