Jaw-dropping steampunk mouse integrating real mouse skeleton

This handmade "Neo Victorian" mouse is pure steamporn -- from the old keyboard keys (emblazoned with cryptic symbols) that serve as the buttons to the gears intermingled with the tarnished bones of a real mouse to the functional, gleaming brass gearing. The maker did a fantastic job explaining his process and materials -- plenty of leads for anyone who wants to try their own hand and making one of these.

After completing my custom keyboard, I was constantly annoyed with seeing my ugly plastic mouse sitting next to it, so I knew a new project was inevitable. I decided to make a custom matching mouse! At first I felt this project was beyond my abilities, since I had to make actual moving and working parts, but after hours of staring at a dissembled mouse and my boxes and jars of random found objects, I developed a plan of attack. The mouse I started with was a generic 5 button mouse with scroll wheel. The two main left/right buttons were the largest obstacles for I couldn’t find anything that would both look and function well. My first though was to use the two sides of a bottom jawbone of some rodent I had lying around, but they ended up being too small and fragile for constant use. I then decided I will just carve some pieces out of wood. After this, I made a mount using brass tubing and brass I-beam shaped pieces. To match the keyboard, I decided to add vintage typewriter keys to each of the finger points on the main 4 buttons of this mouse. I used Alchemy symbols to replace the original letters in the keys. These symbols may or may not have been chosen for a specific significance in this project.

The Paradox Mouse!! Custom Computer Mouse (via Make)

• [Ernunnos]

  Hey, that’s actually not bad. You can see the works, at least some of the individual parts were hand-carved, and there for functionality. The hardware store nuts on the axle are a bit clunky, but it would be easy enough to replace them with threaded “onion” caps from – or patterned after – antique pocket watch crowns.

• [qurve]

  Man, I love this stuff, I really wish BoingBoing would post more stuff about steampunk, it’s been dropping off a bit lately.

• [Justin Razmus]

  Very nice. I never even thought to build a custom mouse. Is it an optical mouse?

• [rochrobb]

  Cordwainer Smith described a laminated mouse brain computer in 1962 in Think Blue, Count Two.

• [Takuan]

  http://www.purplehell.com/riddletools/alchemy.htm

• [Noelegy]

  Now this is how to do steampunk right. Very lovely.

• [Beanolini]

  A slightly earlier Stmpnk mouse is shewn here.

  How does one go about ‘tarnishing’ bones?

• [misshallelujah]

  It looks lovely, but it also looks like it’d make my hand bleed after several hours of continual usage. Especially the scroll wheel– yowza!

• [nck wntrhltr]

  This is the antithesis of “ergonomic”.
  It looks more like a torture device.

• [SamSam]

  Posted two days ago: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/12/09/the-paradox-mouse-is.html

• [thomas12345]

  I like it a lot, except for the spine where the palm would rest.

  It seems like your hand would inadvertently damage the little vertebrae through normal use.

• [freshyill]

  hp Cry vntlly gts sck f ths stmpnk crp. Thn, hpflly, ppl wll gv t p.

• [sebastiano]

  Dear Santa…

• [Anonymous]

  Has Cory pre-ordered his yet?