Making the Arcades

Arcades are decorative moldings that are glued to the front of each natural key head. Rather than making individual arcades to be glued onto the front of each natural key after the keyboard has been cut apart, it’s much easier to make a strip of 30 arcades and glue the strip to the front edge of the keyblank before it's sliced into individual keys.

A custom made router bit will cut the entire arcade at once, but a nice arcade can be made using common drill bits. You will need a 5/8” [15.8mm] forstner bit, a 3/8” [9.5mm] forstner bit, and a 1/8” [3mm] brad point bit. You will also need a piece of maple or another light-colored, tight grained hardwood. Poplar can be used, but it tends to chip under the forstner bits. The arcade strip will be ¼” [6.3mm] thick, but we’ll start out with a ½” [12.7mm] thick blank.